Analysis of the Effects of Water Management Strategies and Climate Change on the Environmental and Agricultural Sustainability of Urmia Lake Basin, Iran

Abstract

Abstract:In arid and semi-arid areas, unsustainable development of irrigated agriculture has reduced the water level of large lakes such as Aral, Urmia, Hamoon, and Bakhtegan. Urmia Lake, as a hyper saline and very shallow lake, located in the northwest of Iran, has water level reductions of about 40 cm each year over the past two decades. In this research, the indices of environmental and agricultural sustainability are evaluated using performance criteria influenced by climate change and water management strategies for the Zarrinehrud and Siminehrud River basins as the largest sub-basin of Urmia Lake basin. Modeling of hydrologic behavior of these basins is performed using WEAP21 model. The model is analyzed for three future emission scenarios (A2, A1B, and B1), for the period of 2015-2040 and five water management scenarios: (1) keeping the existing situation; (2) crop pattern change; (3) improving the conveyance and distribution efficiency; (4) combining the improvement of conveyance and distribution efficiency with improving the application efficiency using modern technology; and (5) the combination of crop pattern change with the improvement of total irrigation efficiency. The results show that the highest values of indices of environmental sustainability and agricultural sustainability are related to the scenario of combining the crop pattern change with improving the total irrigation efficiency under the B1 emission scenario (B1S4).

Analysis of Current and Future Water Demands in the Upper Indus Basin under IPCC Climate and Socio-Economic Scenarios Using a Hydro-Economic WEAP Model

“…The tool is widely used in the world for water allocation and water management [27]. It provides an integrated assessment of the land use, hydrology, climate, water allocation, and water management of the catchment [28]. The WEAP model addresses a number of water issues including the agricultural sector, surface and groundwater sources, sectoral (domestic, agricultural, and industrial) demand analyses, water management, water allocation using priorities, conjunctive use, reservoir operations, and the cost management by financial planning [22,29].…”

“…The mathematical formula of the soil moisture method [28] is as follows: is the interflow from first soil layer, is the partition coefficient related to the land cover type, and , is the saturated hydraulic conductivity of the root zone (mm/time).…”

Validation of satellite-based soil moisture retrievals from SMAP with in situ observation in the Simineh-Zarrineh (Bokan) Catchment, NW of Iran

“…The length of Zarrinehrud and Siminehrud river is about 240 and 200 km and the area of the basin is 11642 and 5921 km 2 respectively. (Ahmadaali et al, 2018). The local climate is characterized by a dry steppe, hot summers, cold winters, low precipitation, high evaporation and low humidity.…”

Decision Support for the (Inter-)Basin Management of Water Resources Using Integrated Hydro-Economic Modeling

“…This endogenous treatment of hydrological and economic relationships brought several advantages such as (adapted from Cai [8]): (i) more effective economic-environmental analysis; (ii) ability to capture the relationship between man and the environment; (iii) provision of decision support related to sustainable economic development. Holistic optimization models (integrated water resources optimization models or IWROMs) [9], water resources-economic optimization [8] or hydro-economic models [10]), whose goal is to find the most efficient strategies for water allocation from the economic point of view, while incorporating hydrological and environmental restrictions, have been advancing rapidly and significantly impacting conceptual approaches and water resources management practices [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].…”