Assessment and Prioritizing of Subwatersheds Based on Watershed Health Scores (Case Study: Ghotorchay, Khoy, West Azerbaijan)

IIntegrated watershed management is known as a new pattern of planning which emphasizes importance of the sustainable development and management of on watershed: water and soil. Therefore, the goals of watershed management will be fulfilled when an integrated management is employed on watershed’s resources. In this study, Ghotorchay watershed is located in West Azarbaijan province, Iran was prioritize according to the health rate. The study area with 6800 ha the study watershed is divided into 11 sub-watershed. Toward this purpose, indices are defined that play main role in the health rate of watershed and show the importance of watershed components. Communications and interactions of each sub-watersheds constituent parts are considered to evaluate the indices. The sub-watershed are divided into five categories: biological condition (species richness), continuity (the number of structure per unit length of river), geomorphology (sensitivity of soil to erosion and climate), hydrology (perennial vegetation and impervious surfaces), and water quality (point and non-point sources). Eventually, the sub-basins were prioritized in terms of each index and the final map was obtained by combining all the calculate criteria. The results show that the health rate of watershed is medium (50-60%), sub-basin 11 has the highest watershed health with 60.39 score rather than other sub-watershed and sub-watershed 6 has the lowest watershed health with 50.71 score with respect to other sub-watersheds. The cause of reduction of health was assessed in each sub-watershed and solutions to improve health and prevent the decline was proposed that these results can prioritize actions to improve and strengthen watershed services should be considered.