The main purpose of the study is the operational simulation of main irrigation canal and evaluation of water delivery and distribution locally, regionally and overall using adequacy, efficiency, and equity indicators and “Desirability of water delivery and distribution” indicator. To achieve this goal, the hydrodynamic model of Roodasht irrigation network’s main canal was developed. The results of the calibration and validation of the hydrodynamic model showed that the two processes were satisfactory. All available scenarios including normal, water shortages and fluctuations were considered for water delivery and distribution in different conditions. In the local assessment, the adequacy varied from 7 to 85%, and the efficiency in all scenarios was 100%. The adequacy, efficiency, and equity indicators in the regional evaluation varied from 6 to 89, 91 to 100, and 13 to 46%, respectively. The overall evaluation of the canal showed that the most desirable situation is related to a harsh fluctuation increasing with the adequacy, equity and efficiency indicators equal to 82, 23 and 91%, respectively. Calculation of the “Desirability of water delivery and distribution” indicator showed poor performance in all operational scenarios except harsh fluctuation scenario with 82% of which, the canal performance was estimated in fair level.

This study investigated the effects of non-structural methods, as practical alternatives for upgrading the operational performance of the irrigation canal. To fulfill this objective, a hydraulic flow simulator model for the Nekoabad irrigation network's main canal was developed, calibrated and then, using two performance evaluation indicators, the adequacy and dependability of water distribution were evaluated. To evaluate water distribution improvement in each one of the non-structural solutions, daily water distribution planning; according to each solution was provided in MATLAB and linked to a simulated mathematical model. To determine the effectiveness of each approach, spatial analysis of changes insecure distribution (sufficient and sustainable) of agricultural water from upstream to downstream of the irrigation network, was done in GIS. The obtained results indicate that the adequacy of surface water distribution was improved 10-11% and 9-7% in the first and second non-structural alternatives, respectively. Besides, the dependability of surface water distribution shows about 13-15% within the application of the alternatives. The results reveal that the second alternatives, fulfilling appropriate water distribution along with the middle and downstream canal reaches, show a more or less good performance.

Evaluation of any irrigation system consists of analyzing the measurable performance of the system in real conditions as well as during the normal operation of the farm. Irrigation evaluation is a management tool that allows the system manager to make the best use of what is available. Unfortunately, in most regions of Iran, after the implementation of irrigation systems their performance is not controlled or supervised. Also, during the operation of the system, the efficiency is not monitored nor analyzed either. Furthermore, the importance of irrigation system evaluation is not clarified to the users in our country. Despite the numerous research that has been conducted on the evaluation of center pivot irrigation system performance by domestic and foreign scholars, due to the complexity of existing evaluation methods, most farmers are not able to use them. Thus, in this paper, we have aimed to provide concise and simplified instructions for evaluating center pivot irrigation systems in order to help farmers in using them more readily. For evaluation of an irrigation system, the use of indexes such as water distribution uniformity, potential output and actual output for irrigation are recommended. Water distribution uniformity is an indicator of the water distribution problems in an irrigation system. The potential output of irrigation index describes the system performance under the current circumstances. Actual output of irrigation is an index that identifies the irrigation management, however it does not show the accuracy of the irrigation system design. According to the review conducted from academic resources, for a center pivot irrigation system, with a water distribution uniformity value of less than 76%, the irrigation potential and actual outputs value of less than 80% and 75%, respectively, are not suitable.

Evaluation procedures have been developed for effective design and management of irrigation systems. Furrow irrigation is one of the main types of applying water in agriculture. In the present study, a new procedure for field evaluation of water distribution in furrow irrigation is proposed. For this purpose, application efficiency (Ea), water requirement efficiency (Er), deep percolation (DP) and tail water ratio (TWR) have been introduced based on the average of the non-dimensional infiltrated depth values in the four data groups. The relationships between coefficient of uniformity, CU and distribution uniformity, DU have been described by opportunity time values of each quarter and using the linear equation instead of infiltration function. The proposed method was compared to other procedures by 9 scenarios of field data with different discharges and lengths. The results show that the evaluation indicators of furrow irrigation depend on the hydraulic characteristics of the soil and the opportunity time. Also, there was no observed any significant difference on the suggested indexes values and classical performance indicators.

In the current situation, water resources are facing quantitative and qualitative issues which leave us with no other choice except to change our perspective towards consumption management. Separating drinking water from sanitary water is one of the components of the consumption quality management. This study was carried out based on SWOT analysis and AHP. At first, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of separation of drinking water from sanitation water was obtained by survey of experts’ opinions. Priorities among SWOT factors and inconsistency rate of matrices was obtained by pairwise comparison matrices. In SWOT analysis the internal factor evaluation matrix (IFE), the external factors evaluation (EFE) and the internal and external factors (IE) were used. IFE and EFE matrices showed the final score of internal and external factors as 2.51 and 1.78, respectively. This indicated that the condition in Yazd are favorable in terms of internal factors while it is not positive in terms of using opportunities or staying away from threats. According to the internal and external factors, strategies are considered as drinking water distribution network (pipeline for drinking water) (SO), Governmental centralized drinking water distribution network (ST), private sector centralized drinking water distribution network (WO) and private sector mobile distribution systems of drinking water (WT). IE matrix showed that the Water and Sewage Company should choose the ST strategy (centralized drinking water distribution network) to avoid the threats and as a solution to water scarcity in 5- to 10-yr horizon

Improving the performance of water distribution systems in the agricultural sector is essential to increase arable crops production by considering surface water volume and energy consumption. Therefore, the main objective of the current research is to evaluate performance of practical alternatives in modernization projects in order to improve the performance of surface water distribution systems and to quantitatively evaluate their performance based on the water-food-energy nexus. The current operational management of the Rudasht Irrigation Network located in Isfahan, was simulated under normal and water shortage scenarios. Then the impact of two modernization methods including an improved manual operation and an automatic control system by using the Model Predictive Control (MPC) on the improvement of surface water distribution was investigated. In order to investigate the operational methods, eight indicators of surface water delivery, energy consumption, surface water productivity, food productivity, energy productivity, surface water economic productivity, energy economic productivity and food economic productivity were used. In the current status (Manual Method) under normal and water shortage scenarios, the values of water-food-energy nexus index were estimated 0.41 and 0.07, respectively. By improving the operational method to improved manual operation method, under normal and water shortage scenarios, the values of water-food-energy nexus index were estimated 0.46 and 0.09, respectively. The results of MPC method showed that this method has the best performance with 0.94 and 0.38 in normal and water shortage scenarios, respectively. The proposed evaluation approach can be used as an appropriate evaluation method to evaluate and prioritize modernization options of agricultural water distribution systems.

In concern of the fast development of drip irrigation systems and knowing that this method has desirable ability in correct management and fertilize, study on application of fertilizer and chemical solution in micro irrigation systems is necessary. Water and fertilizer distribution uniformity are important considerations for designers and users of micro irrigation systems. In this study water and fertilizer distribution uniformity on the soil surface and in the soil profile were evaluated. Online dripper and tape line were used for distributing water and fertilizer. Injection pump, venturi, and fertilizer tank devices were installed in order to inject the fertilizer into the micro irrigation system. The results indicated that because of lower value of coefficient of manufacturing variability in the tape than online dripper, the operation of tape in water and fertilizer distribution uniformity on surface and in the soil profile was better than online dripper. Evaluation of variations of water and fertilizer application along the laterals and Christiansen's uniformity coefficients on the soil surface and in the soil profile indicated that venturi and injection pump had better operation in fertilizer distribution uniformity than fertilizer tank.

Uncertainty is undoubtedly an inevitable part of programming process. A lot of effective factors in the water resources’ performance are not deterministic while their values are surely needed for the design and implantation of water systems. Since an optimal design of water distribution systems is in demand of a just evaluation of the costs, efficient operation of such systems calls for a proper evaluation of their efficiencies. Hereby, the performance of pipe networks, considering simultaneous uncertainty of nodal demands and pipe roughness is assessed in this research. The flexibility of the designed Two-Loop water distribution network along with simultaneous probabilistic changes of nodal demands as well as pipe roughness coefficients are evaluated, calculating a deterministic efficiency factor in Monte Carlo simulation method. Moreover, the variation of nodal demand and pipe roughness coefficient in the considered network is assessed. The results indicate that in a state of simultaneous changes in demand and in roughness coefficient, the Two-Loop network is able to supply consumers with the desired demand and at the required pressure, only approximately in one third of the cases.

In determining the allocation of water resources, the probable conditions of water resources and water demands are considered as the water allocation scenarios in the basin scale. Then, these scenarios are evaluated in the context of integrated water resources management and from the perspective of sustainable development indicators. The best scenario is selected in order to determine the water allocations. In these evaluations, there are spatial distributions and their interactions are simultaneously the key charaterictics in the decision matrix. These features are not often considered in the evaluation process. In the present study, distributed indicators and simple and integrated multi-criteria evaluation models, including ANP and CP methods, were used to evaluate the water allocation scenarios in the Aras Basin. The results showed that modeling of the spatial distribution and interactions of water allocation impacts was not possible through any of the simple multi-criteria evaluation methods. Simplifying and discarding one or two key features in the evaluation process can lead to significant uncertainties on rankings with a Spearman coefficient of -0.1. By implementing the integrated spatial decision-making approach and applying two features simultaneously, the fourth scenario was ranked first. The proposed approach was compared with the individual models, showing more accurate, with the correlation coefficients of 0.5, 0.6 and 0.7.

This research aimed at introducing automatic control systems for surface water irrigation networks as an effective approach to reduce water losses in the agricultural sector. The technical aspects of developing these systems in modern irrigation network modernization projects were considered. Extensive field operations were conducted to collect existing data and perform field measurements in the surface water sector (open channel systems and related hydraulic structures). Subsequently, simulation of the surface water distribution process under normal and drought scenarios was carried out to enable spatio-temporal analysis and evaluation of surface water distribution among tertiary agricultural units. In this context, modeling of intelligent surface water distribution systems using the development of decentralized PI automatic control systems was also performed to investigate the impact of surface water distribution system modernization. The simulation results showed that the improvement in the efficiency index of surface water distribution in the upstream, midstream, and downstream reservoirs of the network for the decentralized PI automatic control system was in the range of 10-7%, 5-15%, and 15-4% under different water scarcity scenarios. Similarly, the improvement in the stability index of surface water distribution was 25-4%, 41-9%, and 42-9%, respectively. The improvement in the equity index of surface water distribution after self-calibration was in the range of 13-3% under different scenarios. The results indicate that under the normal scenario, with the use of the PI automatic control system, the water distribution in all reservoirs of the upstream and midstream reservoirs was in a satisfactory state. The results of the spatio-temporal analysis carried out in this research provided a clear pattern of the inefficiency of the irrigation management system in surface water distribution under water scarcity scenarios and identified the maps of vulnerable areas of the network. It is noteworthy that the methodology developed in this research can be implemented in about 2 million hectares of irrigated lands in the country, which are covered by 120 irrigation and drainage districts.