نشریه آب و توسعه پایدار
سال هشتم شماره 2 (پیاپی 20، تابستان 1400)

Ecological and social science researchers have long faced the challenge of modeling the intrinsic complexity of socio-ecological systems. A popular approach to understand and investigate these systems is agent-based modeling, which has been used not only in ecological sciences but in many other disciplines over the years and has become a widely used tool nowadays. Despite the importance of this modeling approach, there was no standard protocol to make and present these models by 2006. Hence, several expert modelers who covered a wide range of areas in ecology suggested the ODD protocol (Overview, design concepts, and details) as a standard for describing individual-based models (e.g., agent-based models) in 2006. After that, some providers of the first version of the ODD protocol have developed an updated version of this protocol in 2010 to resolve problems and ambiguities of the original version, as an alternative for the previous version, by reviewing research that used this protocol. Then, considering the fundamental role of human decisions in agent-based modeling, a new version of this protocol named ODD+D was introduced in 2013, specifically for this modeling approach. The purpose of the ODD+D protocol was the development and modification of the ODD protocol to create a standard for describing agent-based models so that it can consider human decision-making within itself. Due to the importance of applying this protocol in the structure of agent-based modeling studies, the present research introduces the ODD protocol, reviews its evolution over recent years, and addresses the detailed description of different versions.

Restriction of water supply along with increasing demand in recent years has made water scarcity a serious problem in Iran. Today, researchers emphasize that the solution to the problem of water scarcity is not only to increase supply but also to demand management. Because water plays a key role in sustainable development and regional planning focuses on regional potentials and benefits, water resources management is an appropriate strategy for achieving sustainable development. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze and evaluate water consumption in the economic sectors of Isfahan province using the water footprint index and data-output table. The results of this study showed that according to the water footprint index, although the "agriculture" sector is still in the first place in water consumption, but its share of total consumption has decreased from about 91.73% to 67.81% and the share of the "products industry" Food, Beverage and Tobacco ”has increased from 0.40% to 14.74%. This result shows the difference in water consumption with the water footprint approach compared to the traditional approach. Also, the results of this study showed that the per capita water footprint of each citizen in Isfahan province in 1390 was equal to 2767 m3.

Drought and water shortage in Iran is a climatic reality and due to the increasing need for water in various sectors, especially the agricultural sector, the problem of drought will become more acute in the coming years. Meanwhile, the approach of maintaining water security is less seen in the country's development policies, especially in the agricultural sector, and development policy in Iran has led to the threat of the country's water resources and has posed a serious challenge to establishing water security in the country. Therefore, the management of water resources and how to use it in Iran needs a serious review and therefore it is necessary that the water resources of different regions in terms of physical, social and economic factors and development policies based on it to be continuously assessed. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the situation of water security in the provinces of the country in 2012 and 2017 based on water security indicators and identify the most important variables affecting it. For this purpose, first, using the method of hierarchical analysis and the opinions of experts and researchers, the relative importance of water security indicators was determined and using multi-criteria analysis methods, the combined water security index of the provinces of Iran in 2012 and 2017 was constructed. According to the results, the provinces of Khuzestan, Tehran, East Azerbaijan, Kurdistan and Mazandaran are in a better situation and the provinces of Qom, Yazd, Kerman and Sistan and Baluchestan are in a worse situation in terms of water security than other provinces in the country.

Conservation of water resources is one of the main features of sustainable development and international and national documents emphasize the need to protect them in protected areas in order to preserve biodiversity and their many services such as drinking water supply. In the first step of the present study, the country's surface water resources including important water bodies, permanent rivers, and glacial areas were studied and after preparing the current status maps of these resources, their ecological sensitivity was determined according to the proposed criteria and expert opinions.  In the second step, the coverage of all three surface water sources by the network of protected areas was investigated. The results showed that the criteria of flow regime, naturalness, Extent, species richness of fish and birds, and conservation management status were prioritized for the management of these resources. Also, according to these criteria, Bakhtegan, Arjan, Miankaleh, Choghakhor, Shadegan, and Anzali wetlands, and Kor, Karaj, Sardabrud, Chelgerd, and Sefidrood wetlands were identified as the most sensitive water sources. It was concluded that the two management classes of the protected area and the national natural effect are weaker in covering water resources than the other classes, and the rivers are less present in the network of the areas than other sources. The findings of the present study can be used as a guide for land protection planners in order to pay proper attention to sensitive water resources in selecting protected areas in the country.

Online evaluation of potential evaporation can be useful in water resources management. In this research, the use of software for smartphones to estimate the potential evaporation from free water surface and ground surface and also to estimate the possibility of reducing evaporation due to the installation of photovoltaic panels on water bodies is considered. The data used is extracted from the NASA-POWER cloud network database and the software intelligently detects the selected point in relation to two states of dry area or water area and performs the relevant calculations. The proposed relation for the evaluation of potential evaporation was analyzed by considering 10 year average data of Doosti dam (2008–2017) and its error rate and some experimental relation of potential evaporation and evaporation from the free water surface with the rate of evaporation from the evaporation pan located at the site were determined. The results indicated that the proposed relation yielded a smaller error compared with all the other relations. In order to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed relation and the data extracted from the NASA POWER database, the evaluations done by the software were compared against the values from the evaporation pans in the synoptic stations in six cities. This revealed the validity of the software outputs to be within 8–16%.

Efficient use of water, in addition to increasing production efficiency, can lead to a return on investment with an emphasis on conserving water resources and the environment. One of the ways to use water optimally in agriculture can be the application of technology of pressurized irrigation systems. In this study, using AHP hierarchical analysis process in GIS software environment, the priority of implementing different pressurized irrigation systems (classical fixed, Wheel Move, linear and localized mechanization)  in Dez plain was investigated. This plain is the widest plain and one of the most important agricultural hubs of Khuzestan province. For this purpose, effective criteria in the implementation of each irrigation method, including two main criteria of socio-economic and field physics, each of which has several sub-criteria were considered. Then, the criteria and sub-criteria were scored from 1 to 9 according to the hierarchical scoring table, and after calculating the geometric mean of the final weight of the criteria and sub-criteria for each option, the final scores were entered into the GIS and graphic maps were obtained to prioritize the implementation of each irrigation method. The final maps were obtained to several levels of classification and the final score of each irrigation system by weighting the average percentage of area and the priority of each type of pressurized irrigation methods to be implemented in Dez plain was determined. The results showed that 80.46 and 18.54% of the total area of the plain are suitable for sprinkler and local irrigation, respectively, and the fixed classic irrigation system with the highest score was selected as a higher priority for this research.

According to the forecast of future population growth and recent droughts in the country, one of the major challenges for policymakers on the one hand is to provide safe drinking water and on the other hand, is to solve environmental and health problems caused by undesirable wastewater disposal. To solve this problem in Mashhad, the regional water company of Khorasan Razavi and the water and wastewater company of Mashhad in multilateral cooperation have developed an effluent model to construct a wastewater treatment plant, water supply, and effluent recycling. In this model, due to the lack of public budget and internal resources of companies, the use of private capital by transferring wastewater to the investor to achieve environmental goals and water supply in Mashhad, which has significant benefits for the private sector and community is defined. In this model, two investment packages have been developed between the two companies, the details of which are discussed in the paper. What is very important in this project is to achieve a sustainable effluent model for achieving the defined goals. In this investment model, a total of 93% of water needs and 29% of the required capacity for wastewater treatment will be provided.

Aquaculture is known as a growing industry in the world. This important industry provides food and income to local communities. Hence, it plays an important role in the economic development of countries. So far, nanotechnology has been used as an emerging knowledge in many industries, including the aquaculture sector. One of the manifestations of nanotechnology in the aquaculture industry is the use of metal nanoparticles, which is used to feeding aquatic animals, improving water quality and controlling diseases. Although these materials are widely used in aquaculture, the increase in their production and application has raised many concerns about the potential toxicity to human health and the environment. So far, several studies have been conducted on the toxic effects of metal nanoparticles in aquatic environments, but the role of environmental factors in the toxicity of these materials has received less attention. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of some physicochemical factors of water (including temperature, salinity, oxygen content, water hardness, pH and organic matter) on bioavailability,   toxicity and level of impact of metal nanoparticles in aquatic ecosystems. The findings showed that the factors play an important role in reducing or increasing the effectiveness of pollutants in aquatic ecosystems. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the importance and effectiveness of these factors in studies aimed at evaluating the toxicity of nanoparticles.

Loss of more than 30% of the incoming water to the country's drinking water distribution networks due to leakage from the network, has caused serious concern to the officials of the country's water and sewage companies and finding the location of leakage in distribution networks is one of the important issues and concerns of users and related organizations. Reducing the amount of leakage in water supply networks is one of the main methods of managing the water distribution network in different countries. Currently, several methods have been proposed to detect leaks in water supply networks. In this paper, hydraulic modeling of a real network flow by WaterGEMS hydraulic software and inverse solution of flow equations, having measured values of pressure in a number of network nodes, location prediction and leakage rate in the network Water distribution works were carried out in Mohiabad city located in Kerman province. First, the hydraulic model of the studied network was prepared and calibrated in the hydraulic analysis software and the amount of existing leaks was collected, and then by analyzing the network for different states and number of hypothetical leaks, the pressure values in different network nodes were calculated. In the second stage, using artificial neural networks, after network training, by presenting the measured pressures in some network nodes as input data to the neural network, the position and amount of possible leaks were predicted. Investigation and comparison of the results of hydraulic analysis of the network and artificial neural network showed a very high accuracy of artificial neural networks in estimating the amount and position of leaks.

Rangelands, as one of the most important natural ecosystems, play a prominent role in the production, support, refinement, regulation, and culture of water. In other words, the social life of water is related to the rangelands. This article explores the relationship between rangelands and water, examines their two-way action, and deals with supporting and habitat, provisioning, regulating, and cultural and information dimensions of rangelands in the field of water. Rangelands determine various water-related capabilities due to the creation of an integrated socio-ecological system. Finally, to deal with water shortages, restoration and preservation of rangelands should be one of the basic activities of today's society. Just as water is the savior of rangelands, these ecosystems are the savior and refuge of water. Therefore, sustainability in the water supply is related to the biosustainability of rangelands.