| 1. |
- Alborzi, Aneseh, et al.
(författare)
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Climate-informed environmental inflows to revive a drying lake facing meteorological and anthropogenic droughts
- 2018
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Ingår i: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 1748-9326. ; 13:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The rapid shrinkage of Lake Urmia, one of the world's largest saline lakes located in northwestern Iran, is a tragic wake-up call to revisit the principles of water resources management based on the socio-economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. The overarching goal of this paper is to set a framework for deriving dynamic, climate-informed environmental inflows for drying lakes considering both meteorological/climatic and anthropogenic conditions. We report on the compounding effects of meteorological drought and unsustainable water resource management that contributed to Lake Urmia's contemporary environmental catastrophe. Using rich datasets of hydrologic attributes, water demands and withdrawals, as well as water management infrastructure (i.e. reservoir capacity and operating policies), we provide a quantitative assessment of the basin's water resources, demonstrating that Lake Urmia reached a tipping point in the early 2000s. The lake level failed to rebound to its designated ecological threshold (1274 m above sea level) during a relatively normal hydro-period immediately after the drought of record (1998-2002). The collapse was caused by a marked overshoot of the basin's hydrologic capacity due to growing anthropogenic drought in the face of extreme climatological stressors. We offer a dynamic environmental inflow plan for different climate conditions (dry, wet and near normal), combined with three representative water withdrawal scenarios. Assuming effective implementation of the proposed 40% reduction in the current water withdrawals, the required environmental inflows range from 2900 million cubic meters per year (mcm yr(-1)) during dry conditions to 5400 mcm yr(-1) during wet periods with the average being 4100 mcm yr(-1). Finally, for different environmental inflow scenarios, we estimate the expected recovery time for re-establishing the ecological level of Lake Urmia.
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| 2. |
- Ashraf, Samaneh, et al.
(författare)
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Compounding effects of human activities and climatic changes on surface water availability in Iran
- 2019
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Ingår i: Climatic Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0165-0009 .- 1573-1480. ; 152:3-4, s. 379-391
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- By combining long-term ground-based data on water withdrawal with climate model projections, this study quantifies the compounding effects of human activities and climate change on surface water availability in Iran over the twenty-first century. Our findings show that increasing water withdrawal in Iran, due to population growth and increased agricultural activities, has been the main source of historical water stress. Increased levels of water stress across Iran are expected to continue or even worsen over the next decades due to projected variability and change in precipitation combined with heightened water withdrawals due to increasing population and socio-economic activities. The greatest rate of decreased water storage is expected in the Urmia Basin, northwest of Iran, (varying from -8.3mm/year in 2010-2039 to -61.6mm/year in 2070-2099 compared with an observed rate of 4mm/year in 1976-2005). Human activities, however, strongly dominate the effects of precipitation variability and change. Major shifts toward sustainable land and water management are needed to reduce the impacts of water scarcity in the future, particularly in Iran's heavily stressed basins like Urmia Basin, which feeds the shrinking Lake Urmia.
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| 3. |
- AghaKouchak, Amir, et al.
(författare)
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Anthropogenic Drought : Definition, Challenges, and Opportunities
- 2021
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Ingår i: Reviews of geophysics. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 8755-1209 .- 1944-9208. ; 59:2
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Traditional, mainstream definitions of drought describe it as deficit in water-related variables or water-dependent activities (e.g., precipitation, soil moisture, surface and groundwater storage, and irrigation) due to natural variabilities that are out of the control of local decision-makers. Here, we argue that within coupled human-water systems, drought must be defined and understood as a process as opposed to a product to help better frame and describe the complex and interrelated dynamics of both natural and human-induced changes that define anthropogenic drought as a compound multidimensional and multiscale phenomenon, governed by the combination of natural water variability, climate change, human decisions and activities, and altered micro-climate conditions due to changes in land and water management. This definition considers the full spectrum of dynamic feedbacks and processes (e.g., land-atmosphere interactions and water and energy balance) within human-nature systems that drive the development of anthropogenic drought. This process magnifies the water supply demand gap and can lead to water bankruptcy, which will become more rampant around the globe in the coming decades due to continuously growing water demands under compounding effects of climate change and global environmental degradation. This challenge has de facto implications for both short-term and long-term water resources planning and management, water governance, and policymaking. Herein, after a brief overview of the anthropogenic drought concept and its examples, we discuss existing research gaps and opportunities for better understanding, modeling, and management of this phenomenon.
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| 4. |
- Noori, Roohollah, et al.
(författare)
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Anthropogenic depletion of Iran's aquifers
- 2021
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 118:25
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global groundwater assessments rank Iran among countries with the highest groundwater depletion rate using coarse spatial scales that hinder detection of regional imbalances between renewable groundwater supply and human withdrawals. Herein, we use in situ data from 12,230 piezometers, 14,856 observation wells, and groundwater extraction points to provide ground-based evidence about Iran’s widespread groundwater depletion and salinity problems. While the number of groundwater extraction points increased by 84.9% from 546,000 in 2002 to over a million in 2015, the annual groundwater withdrawal decreased by 18% (from 74.6 to 61.3 km3/y) primarily due to physical limits to fresh groundwater resources (i.e., depletion and/or salinization). On average, withdrawing 5.4 km3/y of nonrenewable water caused groundwater tables to decline 10 to 100 cm/y in different regions, averaging 49 cm/y across the country. This caused elevated annual average electrical conductivity (EC) of groundwater in vast arid/semiarid areas of central and eastern Iran (16 out of 30 subbasins), indicating “very high salinity hazard” for irrigation water. The annual average EC values were generally lower in the wetter northern and western regions, where groundwater EC improvements were detected in rare cases. Our results based on high-resolution groundwater measurements reveal alarming water security threats associated with declining fresh groundwater quantity and quality due to many years of unsustainable use. Our analysis offers insights into the environmental implications and limitations of water-intensive development plans that other water-scarce countries might adopt.
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| 5. |
- Ashraf, Batool, et al.
(författare)
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Quantifying Anthropogenic Stress on Groundwater Resources
- 2017
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study explores a general framework for quantifying anthropogenic influences on groundwater budget based on normalized human outflow (h(out)) and inflow (h(in)). The framework is useful for sustainability assessment of groundwater systems and allows investigating the effects of different human water abstraction scenarios on the overall aquifer regime (e.g., depleted, natural flow-dominated, and human flow-dominated). We apply this approach to selected regions in the USA, Germany and Iran to evaluate the current aquifer regime. We subsequently present two scenarios of changes in human water withdrawals and return flow to the system (individually and combined). Results show that approximately one-third of the selected aquifers in the USA, and half of the selected aquifers in Iran are dominated by human activities, while the selected aquifers in Germany are natural flow-dominated. The scenario analysis results also show that reduced human withdrawals could help with regime change in some aquifers. For instance, in two of the selected USA aquifers, a decrease in anthropogenic influences by similar to 20% may change the condition of depleted regime to natural flow-dominated regime. We specifically highlight a trending threat to the sustainability of groundwater in northwest Iran and California, and the need for more careful assessment and monitoring practices as well as strict regulations to mitigate the negative impacts of groundwater overexploitation.
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| 6. |
- Davtalab, Rahman, et al.
(författare)
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Improving Continuous Hydrologic Modeling of Data-Poor River Basins Using Hydrologic Engineering Center's Hydrologic Modeling System : Case Study of Karkheh River Basin
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of hydrologic engineering. - 1084-0699 .- 1943-5584. ; 22:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper applies HEC-HMS to the Karkheh River basin (KRB), Iran, and facilitates the calibration of a continuous hydrologic model (CHM) with soil moisture accounting (SMA) and snowmelt degree-day parameters. Manual calibration was performed to ensure the physical relevance of HEC-HMS parameter values. Because manual calibration entails changing each parameter value in a user-defined setting, it is often a time-consuming procedure complicated by multitude of interacting parameters. To address this setback, an event-based calibration technique (EBCT) was implemented in KRB and its interior sub-basins whereby the governing parameters of specific fall, spring, and winter events were initially estimated in a precalibration step and used as inputs to facilitate calibration of the CHM. Model performance analyzed based on goodness-of-fit criteria with respect to peak flows, low flows, and hydrograph shape reflects uncertainties associated with streamflow naturalization and use of average annual parameter values for the snowmelt component. Sensitivity analysis provided insights into the basin's snowfall and melt characteristics, distinguishing antecedent temperature index (ATI) cold rate coefficient and baseflow recession coefficient as key parameters affecting hydrograph shape and magnitude of the peak flow, respectively. Results based on goodness of fit metrics suggest that event-based parameter estimation using seasonal characteristics improved the efficiency and accuracy of the continuous HEC-HMS model (CORRL and NSE 0.78-0.87 and 0.5-0.7, respectively) while facilitating application to a large, data-poor river basin with heterogeneous climatic conditions.
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| 7. |
- Davtalab, Rahman, et al.
(författare)
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Sea Level Rise Effect on Groundwater Rise and Stormwater Retention Pond Reliability
- 2020
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Ingår i: Water. - : MDPI AG. - 2073-4441. ; 12:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The coastal areas of Florida, United States, are exposed to increasing risk of flooding due to sea level rise as well as severe hurricanes. Florida regulations suggest constructing stormwater retention ponds as an option to retain excess runoff generated by the increased impervious area and to protect the environment by reducing pollutants from new developments. Groundwater level rise can significantly lower the soil storage capacity and infiltration at retention ponds, in turn, reducing the pond's capacity to capture consecutive storms due to longer pond volume recovery time. Partial groundwater inundation can affect retention ponds' ability to decrease peak flow rates and keep the post-development outflow lower than or equal to pre-development conditions. In this paper, the reliability and performance of a retention pond near Tampa Bay, Florida, was evaluated under sea level rise conditions. An integrated surface water and groundwater model was developed, and the groundwater table was projected for future conditions as a function of sea level rise. The results showed that sea level rise could increase the seasonal high water elevation of the retention pond up to 40 cm by mid-21st century. This increase lowered the reliability of the retention pond by about 45%. The pond failed to recover the designed treatment volume within required 72 h because of the high groundwater table, increasing the risk of pollutant discharge. Furthermore, the peak flow and volume of runoff significantly increased under sea level rise and associated groundwater table rise conditions. The study results suggest that it is imperative to consider future sea level rise conditions in stormwater design in low-lying coastal areas of Florida and around the world to prevent poor pond performance and increased risk of flooding in the future.
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| 8. |
- Mirzaei, Atena, et al.
(författare)
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The Groundwater‒Energy‒Food Nexus in Iran's Agricultural Sector : Implications for Water Security
- 2019
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Ingår i: Water. - : MDPI AG. - 2073-4441. ; 11:9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents the first groundwater-energy-food (GEF) nexus study of Iran's agronomic crops based on national and provincial datasets and firsthand estimates of agricultural groundwater withdrawal. We use agronomic crop production, water withdrawal, and energy consumption data to estimate groundwater withdrawal from electric-powered irrigation wells and examine agronomic productivity in Iran's 31 provinces through the lens of GEF nexus. The ex-post GEF analysis sheds light on some of the root causes of the nation's worsening water shortage problems. Access to highly subsidized water (surface water and groundwater) and energy has been the backbone of agricultural expansion policies in Iran, supporting employment in agrarian communities. Consequently, water use for agronomic crop production has greatly overshot the renewable water supply capacity of the country, making water bankruptcy a serious national security threat. Significant groundwater table decline across the country and increasing energy consumption underscore dysfunctional feedback relations between agricultural water and energy price and groundwater withdrawal in an inefficient agronomic sector. Thus, it is essential to implement holistic policy reforms aimed at reducing agricultural water consumption to alleviate the looming water bankruptcy threats, which can lead to the loss of numerous agricultural jobs in the years to come.
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| 9. |
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