مجله مهندسی و مدیریت آبخیز
سال یازدهم شماره 3 (پاییز 1398)

Runoff estimation is a fundamental activity in water resource management, and plays an important role in the best usage of a hydrologic system. Runoff estimation is usually based on different hydrological models. Calculation of intensity and duration of precipitation is not efficient in the most regions of the globe for determining general properties of precipitation because these calculations are based on pointed data of ground observation, whereas precipitation is a spatial phenomenon. The aim of this paper is simulating monthly runoff of Kalam Basin based on satellite data of precipitation using SWAT model. In order to running SWAT, precipitation data of TRMM and GPCP, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and solar radiation is used for the period of 1998 to 2012 for study area. Also, soil and land use maps and DEM are converted to the model format for study area. Period 2001 to 2009 is used for calibration and 2010 to 2012 for validation of the model. Nash Sutcliffe Efficiency Index and Weighting Coefficient was 0.41, 0.44, 0.32 and 0.37 for TRMM and GPCP respectively for calibration and 0.52, 0.71, 0.10 and 0.19 for validation. The results indicated that SWAT achieved a reasonable fit after calibration by using TRMM and not reasonable using GPCP data the model.

Debris flow is one of the natural hazards that threats people's lives in the mountainous populated areas. Thus, it is necessary to determine the rainfall thresholds for debris flow occurrence in order to develop an effective forecasting system. In this study, the empirical thresholds of rainfall for the occurrence of debris flow by Hirano method were assessed in a part of Alborz mountainous basins including Gorganrood, Navrood, Neka and Babolrood. For this purpose, the rainfall hyetographs of recording rain gauges were used from the period of 1983-2004. Then, the intensity-duration rainfall thresholds (I-D threshold) for selected basins were estimated and compared with previous studies from the local, regional and global scale. The examination of rainfall thresholds for the initiation of debris flow showed that the rainfall of more than 27.2 and 14.8 mm, respectively, in the Navrood and Gorganrood watersheds and rainfall more than 37.84 and 66.12 mm, respectively, in the Babolrood and Neka basins are able to trigger debris flow during their concentration time. Comparison of the I-D threshold of this study with the results of previous studies showed I-D threshold of the studied basins generally are lower than the thresholds of local and regional but higher than global thresholds. In other words, there are some areas in the world that need smaller rainfalls for initiation debris flow in comparison to the study area. The difference among threshold of debris flow occurrence in the world’s basins comes from their variety in climatic, geographical, physiographic and geological factors.

Developing an understandable and comprehensive conceptual model for watershed health assessment is one of the main priorities of many various managerial and policy making projects in the world including the mega project on the integrated watershed management of Iran. Towards this, the present study as the pioneering research in the country has been conducted to customize the reliability, resilience and vulnerability (RelResVul) conceptual model based on hydrological data to assess watershed health. To this end, firstly the long-term data of discharge of the Shazand Watershed that located in Markazi Province was prepared and the flow duration curve was accordingly derived. Secondly, the appropriate thresholds of low and high flow discharges as prerequisites for watershed health assessment were applied to the RelResVul conceptual model. Hence, the reliability (Rel), resilience (Res) and vulnerability (Vul) indicators were calculated for four node years of 1986, 1998, 2008 and 2014. Finally, the general health state of the Shazand Watershed and its different sub-watersheds was zoned on the basis of two low and high flow discharge criteria through the geometric integrating of the mentioned indicators. The results showed that for the four study years respectively, 59, 53, 68 and 66 % of the watershed in terms of low flow discharge as well as 19, 22, 54 and 38 % of the Shazand Watershed in terms of high flow discharge were situated beyond relatively healthy state. The watershed health index assessment indicated the moderate and relatively healthy states with improving trend for low flow discharge criterion and moderate healthy state with constant trend for high flow discharge criterion. In addition, the results were verified the spatial changeability of watershed health state in different sub-watersheds for the study years.

Human interventions on natural trend and overexploitation of natural resources, altogether have interrupted nature reclamation and accelerated its degradation. The present research aims to determine anthropogenic factors on wind erosion intensification in Hamun area, Sistan. The study populations included two groups, first all experts in the natural resources sector in city of Zabol (36 experts) which were  surveyed and second group included all households in Hamoon area of Sistan which their number was 4121 households and according to Cochran formula, the sample size was obtained 221 households. The results of the questionnaires responded by experts showed that off-season cultivation of melon Hamoon lake bed, Excavation of water storing pits and manipulation of stabilized Lake bed and overgrazing vegetation in Hamoon bed are found to be the most important factors in exacerbation of wind erosion in this area. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to determine anthropogenic factors affecting the above three factors. Data analysis showed that experience of stakeholders and number of stockholders family members both have positive significant role in increasing our off-season cultivation of melons on the lake bed, Excavation of water storing pits and grazing on lake bed in 99% confidence level. On the other hand those stakeholders owning greater farmlands, high education level and income have fewer tendencies to overexploitation and degrade area.

Assessment of temporal and spatial variations of runoff and sediment is needed to sustainable management of watersheds, soil erosion and sediment control, and watershed conservation projects. The amount of discharge and sediment concentration rates were assessed in 15 river gauge stations located in the West-Azarbaijan Province in a 20-years recorded data using double-mass curve and annual variation analysis (coefficient of variations, annual distribution of regulating coefficient, and concentration rate). The logarithmic rating curve equation was used to sediment estimation according to the nature of discharge and sediment load variations. According to the results, the maximum discharge and sediment amount were observed in the May of spring season that can be related to the high amounts of snow melt and spring precipitation and associated high river flow discharge in the study area. The cumulative double mass curve of the runoff and sediment had a constant slope in the Pole-Bahramlou, Choplojeh, Sarighamish, Peighale, Naghadeh, Dorood, and Chapasabad stations, in which the sediment load is consistent with the runoff amounts. While, the decreasing pattern of sediment load was observed in the Dizaj, Urmia, Dashband, Ghasemlou, and Bayazidabad, which can be related to rainfall decrease and conservation measures (dam construction) and lower sediment amount in the study period. The highest coefficient of variation of runoff and sediment was observed in Pole-Bahramlou (16 and 173 percent), respectively. The highest monthly runoff-sediment uniformity was identified in Chaparabad station, where the lowest concentration rate of runoff and sediment were observed by 0.25 and 0.35 percent respectively; while, the Urmia station identified as a high rate of runoff and sediment concentration rate with 0.58 and 0.84 percent in the study area. It can be concluded that the seasonal variations of runoff and sediment had a consistent manner and some different spatial variations due to climatic, hydrologic and anthropogenic conditions.

The increase of greenhouse gases caused imbalance in the amount of air and water in the Earth, which called climate changed. Increasing the greenhouse gases not only impact on the weather parameters, but also impact on water resources, agriculture, environment, health and the economy as well. For the effects of climate change on different systems in the future, first the climatic variables which are affected under the greenhouse gases should be simulated (different climate scenarios). There are several simulation methods where the climate model methods are most suitable. The AOGCM model is able to simulate global climate in large scale, while not suitable for small and regional scale. So, it is necessary to identify the variations (climate) in small scale. For this reasons it is necessary to use the downscaling methods such as dynamic methods which are based on high resolution and analysis of climate models. This method is suitable and appropriate for Iran since it suffers from lacks of observed data as well as lack of long term and enough stations in the country. In this study, PRECIS model (a dynamical downscaling climate model) was evaluated for simulation of precipitation and temperature. In general, the results of PRECIS model indicate this model can be a good estimate of temperature and precipitation in the region. Although for the rainfall in autumn and spring, due to the local nature of the precipitation, the model is not very strong. Also, comparison of spatial and point evaluation of the model showed that areal evaluation is appropriate as opposed to a point.

Simulation and evaluation of river sediment is one of the important issues in water resources management. Measuring the amount of sediment in conventional methods generally involves a lot of time and cost and sometimes does not have sufficient accuracy. In this study, a wavelet neural network was used to estimate the sediments of the Kashkan River in Lorestan Province, and its results were compared with conventional smart methods such as artificial neural network. Parameters of discharge, temperature, water soluble solids content and precipitation as input and sediment discharge were selected as output during the monthly statistical period (1984-2013). Correlation coefficient, root mean squared error, and Nash Sutcliff coefficient were used to evaluate and compare the performance of the models. Results showed that the combined structure has been able to provide acceptable results in estimating sediment yield using two intelligent methods. However, in terms of accuracy, the wavelet neural network model with the highest correlation coefficient (0.850), the lowest root mean square error (0.151 tonday-1), and the Nash-Sutcliff criterion (0.758) were prioritized in the validation stage. Results also showed that the wavelet neural network model has a high ability to estimate the minimum and maximum values.

Identification of areas that prone to subsidence and estimation of its rate plays an important role in the control management of this phenomenon. Differential interferometry radar technique (D-InSAR) with very high accuracy is one of the most suitable ways for identify and measure the rate of subsidence. In this study, to identify and measure the subsidence in Mahyar Plain differential radar interferometry techniques have been used in the period of 2004 to 2010. For this purpose, eight pair images of time series were used from ASAR sensor in C-band radar in ascending passage. The method used in this study is based on laboratory-field surveys. For validation of technique, survey data such land use and geology maps and data of observation wells in the region were used. As a result, maximum rate of annual subsidence in the area was 6.4 cm yr-1. Also, results showed that the highest amount of subsidence occurred in areas under cultivation and due to excess extraction of groundwater and subsidence of aquifer surface. The rate of subsidence was obtained 0.384 cm for each two cm drop of water table according to the relationship between subsidence and the changes of piezometric wells surface.

The Flow Duration Curve (FDC) is a classical method used to graphically represent the relationship between the frequency and magnitude of stream flow and is required as a prerequisite for water resources management projects. In this study, by analyzing daily data of hydrodynamic stations, 47 stations with the appropriate statistics and the common period between 1976 and 2011 was selected in a semi-arid region of the country. Using a topographic map with a scale of 1: 50000 and determining the position of the stations, the study area was determined and 11 physiographic parameters influencing the flow duration curve including: average height, basin area, gravilillus coefficient, basin slope, main river length and hydrological parameters including annual rainfall, Base flow index, hydrograph recession constant, curve number, permeability and the number of rainy days were extracted for each basin. The flow duration curve indices were then extracted using daily flow data. Then factor analysis was performed and independent factors influencing the flow duration curve were determined. Finally, homogeneity was performed based on independent main factors and the regression relations of the curve indices were extracted in each homogeneous region.In order to investigate the validity and accuracy of the models in homogeneous regions, error-independent test methods, normal distribution of errors and control stations were used. The results showed that the selected factors for factor analysis in semi-arid climatic zone (75.875 percent) of the variance of data were explained. The six parameters of precipitation, curve number, slope, rainy days, permeability and area were known as ​​the most effective parameters. The results of the accuracy assessment of the models using the control stations showed that the relative error of the relations presented in the homogeneous region was 0.17, 2.17, 2.73, 1.53 and 1.94, respectively. The normal distribution of errors, the coefficient of determination of more than 0.90 and the  Durbin Watson coefficient between 1.5 to 2.5 also Nash-Sutcliff near "one" indicate the reliability of the regression relations presented for estimating the flow duration curve indices in the  ungagged catchments in semi-arid areas of the country.

As a method for dimension reduction and elimination of energy damper structures that are located downstream of rapids, obstacles that are put on rapids are sometimes employed. In this research, damping capabilities of floating cubic obstacles were investigated using an experimental model. To do this, various experiments were performed on four different slopes of rapids with and without obstacles in a laboratory open channel in the hydraulic laboratory of Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz. Results of the experiments without obstacles on discharges contained in this research’s scope showed that the amount of damped energy relative to the upstream energy ranges from 10 percent for a slope of 1:4 to 63 percent for a slope of 1:5. According to comparison of energy loss in different slopes, we can conclude that the reduction of chute bed slope increases the relative damped energy. We can also argue that the reduced chute bed slope leads to a slower energy loss procedure. Energy dissipation had an increase of 17 to 44 percent according to the studied results of models with and without obstacles. According to comparison of energy loss in different slopes of models with obstacles, we can conclude that the amount of relative damped energy increases and the damped energy reduction occurs on lower slope by reducing the chute bed slope. Using multi-variable regression, some equations were extracted in the final section in order to predict energy damping in such rapids with or without obstacles.

Phosphorus (P) loss in runoff can promotes weed and algae growth in water systems as a result of high concentrations of surface water P. As a result, relationship between available soil P and P concentrations is necessary for management of P concentrations in surface waters and for critical soil P determination. For this purpose, from 30 points of Talkherood Watershed surface soil samples with widely available P contents were selected. After determining some of general properties, four soil P tests including Olsen, Mehlich-3, Iron oxide and Soltanpour were measured. Then, soil samples were poured with imperative compaction and rainfall was applied onto 30×60 cm soil boxes on a 5% slope for 30 minutes by applying 75 mm h-1 rainfall. Their runoff was sampled in different times and their dissolved P concentration was measured. Significant correlation was obtained between dissolved runoff P and the four methods of available P for the soils. Critical concentrations of phosphorus for Olsen, Mehlich-3, Iron oxide, and Soltanpour methods were 86, 140, 52 and 49 mg l-1, respectively. Also, the four methods showed critical dissolved runoff P concentrations in narrow range of 0.38 to 0.4 mg l-1.

Investigation of desertification trend needs an understanding of phenomena creating changes alone or action and reaction together in the manner that these changes end up in land degradation and desertification. In investigating pedological criterion affecting on land degradation in alluvial fans, first, maps of slope classes, land use and geology were created, then a map of units was founded by overlaying and crossing these maps and grid layer created by extension of ET GeoWizards in ArcGIS 10.3 software. In this research, three indices of erodibility, salinity and permeability of soil were considered, finally each was shown in the shape of classified map. Then, weights of criteria and consistency ratio were calculated by AHP method. In this research, VIKOR method was used to prioritize the options. Results showed that the VIKOR index obtained from AHP-VIKOR technique alters from 0.002 to 1.000. Units of V1 and V10 with VIKOR indices of 1.000 and 0.002 have a maximum and minimum of desertification potential, respectively. The alluvial fans in research area were classified in two classes of I and IV from the view point of pedological criterion affecting on desertification using AHP-VIKOR technique, in the manner that 74.18 % of the area is in the low desertification potential, and 25.82 % is in the very high desertification potential, respectively.

The current study aims to investigate the relationship between hydrological and meteorological droughts in the Maharloo Watershed, Fars Province. In order to assess the hydrological drought, Standardized Water-Level Index (SWI) was used, calculated from piezometric groundwater level data from 60 observation wells within 15 years (2000-2014). The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), calculated from the 15 years of rainfall data from 18 stations was used to assess meteorological drought in the study area. Two geostatistical techniques were employed to create drought zonation maps namely Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) and simple kriging. Correspondingly, three criteria were chosen to evaluate the results including Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Bias Error (MBE), and Root-Mean-Square error (RMSE). Furthermore, the Mann-Kendall test was used to assess the temporal trends of hydrological and meteorological droughts. As a result, trends in hydrological drought were increasing in a significant manner, while meteorological drought trend was decreasing at first and increasing afterwards so that it did not follow any particular trend. With regard to the results of hydrological drought assessment, the driest period has been occurred in 2000 with the SWI value of about 2.25, while 2003 had the highest SWI value equals -2.66 as the most significant wet period. Moreover,   the most intense drought and wet periods have been occurred respectively in northwestern and southwestern to central parts of the study area. The results of meteorological drought assessment indicated that the Komehr station has had the most intense wet period in 2000, however; it turned to have the most intense drought periods later on. As regards the evaluation of interpolation techniques, the IDW method with the lowest MAE value of 0.2688 and the lowest RMSE value of 0.0629was chosen as the best interpolation method compared to simple kriging. Also, the drought map obtained from the SPI method with the lowest values of MAE (0.2688) and MBE (-0.000051) found to be the most desirable method to assess the drought behavior in the study area.

Erosion is one of the most worrisome issues associated with the river and coastal sides. The use of spur dikes is one of the newest methods for controlling and reducing erosion. The spur dikes are in various forms, such as simple, l-shaped and t-shaped. In this experimental study, the effect of different geometry of upstream and downstream spur dikes on the scouring of middle t-shaped spur dike was study for a series of spur dike combinations. Experiments have been analyzed for movable bed in the threshold of motion condition. The results of this study showed that the average scour depth around the mid-t-shaped spur dike is about 0.8 times the flow depth. The best performance of the t-shaped spur dike occurs when the upstream spur dike is l-shaped and downstream is t-shaped (L T T). In fact, the lowest volume and average scour depth due to the all situations is related to this combination. The erosion volume was calculated using the Surfer software. The average scouring volume of this combination is 0.063 m3 and the average scour depth is about 1.21 times the flow depth. At the site of the first spur dike, the entire amount of erosion on the side of spur dikes but by crossing the spur dikes, erosion is directed toward the opposite.

Water harvesting and surface runoff control systems are the important components of urban planning and development and ignoring these issues is likely to raise crisis. In order to decrease the urban flood damages, the urban runoff is needed to be evaluated correctly. Today some of models are developed for urban runoff simulation. One of the most important models in evaluating and management of urban runoff is SWMM. The aim of this study is to evaluate SWMM efficiency on urban runoff simulation in Izeh urban basin. To define design rain, concentration time was computed while considering the duration of the cloudburst as equal to this time. Also three performance indexes of Nash-Sutklif, errors sum of squares and Bias were used in order to model calibration and validation. Moreover, areas of high susceptibility were determined for two, five, 10, 20 and 50 years of return periods. Later, it was found that the principle reason of inundation is the lack of sufficient capacity of water ways. In some points, even with sufficient capacity, inundation occurs, confirmed by model. In these cases the causes stem from the improper design and construction of bridges which has lessen the size of water ways and caused junk clogging. Three rainfall events were recorded on March 13, 2017, March 28, 2017 and April 6, 2017 which were considered in order to calibrate and evaluate the model performance. Along with that, the discharge, depth and velocity of water at the outlet were considered as well. The results of the SWMM application gave indication of a good matchup between discharge, depth and the velocity of runoff for observed and estimated data. In this case, this model could be utilized to well predict the inundation hazard, design and the estimation of the cost and volume of drainage systems, management of watershed and prioritization of region to address flooding issues.

Soil moisture is one of the key parameters in watershed and water resources studies. Field measurement of this parameter is extremely difficult, time-consuming and costly. Hence, in recent years, numerous satellite-based methods for estimating and modeling soil moisture have been developed and presented. Among proposed methods, surface energy models performed better and have a higher degree of accuracy because of their physical nature. But, due to their particular complexity, they have been used rarely. Therefore, this research was carried out to estimate soil moisture using Landsat 8 Satellite imagery and Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) near the Shadegan Wetland, located in the south-west of Iran. For this purpose, volumetric soil moisture content was measured at 39 points on 27 June 2016, simultaneous with the overpass of Landsat 8 Satellite over the study area. After necessary image processing, the was calculated using the applying the SEBS on satellite image. Then, the evaporation fraction was used as the main input in an experimental model (saturation ratio model) for estimating the soil moisture. Results showed the good ability of the model for estimating soil moisture with the coefficient of determination of 0.69 and the RMSE error value of 0.03 . It can be concluded that combination of remote sensing data, surface energy balance system and the experimental model of soil moisture can be used for modeling soil moisture in a large scale.

The effects of a change in the temperature and particularly precipitation around the world are not well known due to their complexity and spatial variations. In this research, the impacts of climate change on some climatic variables (temperature and precipitation) has been studied  in Hableh Roud Basin due to ecological sensitivity and special situation of this area and HadCM3 model data were analyzed using LARS-WG model according to A2, B2 and A1B scenarios. The seasonal variations of precipitation, minimum and maximum temperature of the synoptic stations of Firouzkooh and Garmsar were investigated in two periods of 2030-2011 and 2046-2065. Results showed that precipitation between 0.23 to 0.48 mm will increase in the near future and will decrease between 0.08 to 0.15 mm in the middle future. The minimum temperature will increase between 0.5 to 0.67° C in near future and between 1.54 to 1.97° C for the middle future. Maximum temperature will increase in near future between 0.43 to 0.6° C and between 1.47 to 1.89° C in middle future. Finally, the climatic conditions of the Hableh Roud Basin will have a significant difference compared to current conditions in upcoming periods. Therefore, regarding to this issue, as well as awareness of the direct and indirect negative effects of climate change in the various parts of the basin (agriculture, water resources, environment, natural resources, health, industry and economics), long-term planning and strategic management of new situations is essential.

The purpose of this study was to survey of tourism in sustainable economic development in sustainable rural development, focusing on economic dimensions of Fouman County. Rural tourism creates a chain of economic and service activities, increasing the demand for handicrafts, traditional arts and activities that require more labor, and extrinsic flows, inject costs into the region and affect on traditional multiplier and encourages. The present research is a descriptive and analytical method in term of its purpose. The information was collected through questionnaires and fieldwork. The statistical population of the research is all household caregivers of 12 villages in Fouman City, which are tourism destinations. The total number of households was 2019 families and the population of 12 target villages was 7,256. According to research population, a proportional volume sampling method was chosen. Using the Cochran sample size formula, the sample size of 324 households was determined. To measure the variables, a researcher-made questionnaire consisting of 35 questions and four components was used. The reliability of the questionnaire was 0.73 using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Data were collected using questionnaires using Sign and Friedman tests. Based on the results of the sign test in sub hypothesis 1, it was found that there is a significant relationship between tourism and employment growth in the studied villages. The sign test in sub hypothesis 2, it was found that there is a significant relationship between tourism and increase in income level of villagers. According to the test results of hypothesis 3, it was found that there is a significant relationship between tourism and increasing the wealth of villagers. There was a priority between the impacts of tourism on sustainable development of rural economy. These priorities were important in order of importance: 1. Income generation; 2. Employment creation; 3. Rural economy sustainability.

In arid regions,like most of the Iran, human is suffering fromwater shortage. Water harvesting can be effective, especially in correct exploitation of existing waters in arid regions. With an average rainfall of less than one-third of the world, there are different climates in Iran, even in southern parts like Minab and the areas around Estaghlal Dam. In current situations, rainfall pattern has been changed and the length of drought periods has been increased in Minab. Last designed standard operating systems for estimating the amount of water entering to reservoirs like Esteghlal Dam are not sufficient. So, it is necessary to use new methods with higher accuracy in estimating and predicting watershed surface runoff. To achieve this objective, the use of numerical models for estimating and predicting is inevitable. In this research, SWAT and artificial intelligence models are used to estimate and forecast surface runoff. Calibration, validation and prediction of surface runoff were computed using soil, land use, topography and hydro-climatic data layers in the yearly and monthly basis. The annual values of evaluation criteria such as Mean Square Error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MSE) in the calibration of the SWAT model were 6.89, 8.37 and for FTDNN were 5.35, 7.76, respectively, while, the monthly calibration results were 16.29, 32.02 for the SWAT and 9.46, 22.86 for FTDNN models. Linear regression coefficients in monthly calibration of models were 0.96 and 0.60 and in annual calibration of models were 0.94 and 0.98, respectively. Comparing criteria of evaluation of two models concluded that artificial intelligent model (FTDNN) has more accuracy and superior performance compared to SWAT model.

Greenhouse gases have continued to increase in the atmosphere. This is largely due to industrial activities. The warming effect of greenhouse gas, increased over the last 200 years, due to carbon dioxide; hence the temperature of the lower levels of atmosphere will be increased. The climate change across the world resulted in an increased drought; disturbance in rainfall as well as desertification. Desertification has been caused by a variety of factors such as climate change. It is a significant natural resources problem. The aim of this study was to evaluate the desertification during five periods (1978-1987, 1978-2007, 2012-2041, 2042-2071, and 2072-2101) during the last, present, and future, using IMDPA model as well as climate and geology-geomorphology criteria. For each criterion, some indexes were selected, using area condition. First, air temperature and precipitation during the previous time was evaluated. Then, the climate change was estimated using two climatic models of HADCM3 and GFDL2.1 and three scenarios of A2, B1 and A1B of GCM as well as small scale exponentially. The land use map for four classes in two periods (1986 and 2010) was prepared and used for input data to the Markov chain for estimating future land changes through the three periods (1419, 1449, and 1479). Results were used as the land use index for working unit in geology-geomorphology criterion. It was assumed that the tolerance of stone to the erosion and slope of maps were constants. Hence, this criterion was studied during five periods. Results showed that the intensity of desertification was increased during the time.