| 1. |
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| 2. |
- Abdelhady, Dalia, et al.
(författare)
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The Nile and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Is There a Meeting Point between Nationalism and Hydrosolidarity?
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education. - 1936-704X. ; 155:1, s. 73-82
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The soon-to-be completed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which will be the largest hydroelectric power plant and among the largest reservoirs in Africa, has highlighted the need for expanding traditional integrated water resources management to better include the cultural, social, and political complexities of large water infrastructure in development projects. The GERD will store a maximum of 74 billion cubic meters of water corresponding to approximately the average annual outflow of the Nile from the Aswan high dam. Undoubtedly, the GERD will be vital for energy production and a key factor for food production, economic development, and poverty reduction in Ethiopia and the Nile Basin. However, the GERD is also a political statement that in one stroke has re-written the hydropolitical map of the Nile Basin. The GERD has become a symbol of Ethiopian nationalism or “renaissance” (hidase in Amharic). A contrasting concept to nationalism is hydrosolidarity. This concept has been put forward to better stress equitable use of water in international water management challenges that would lead to sustainable socioeconomic development. We use the opposing notions of nationalism and hydrosolidarity at three different scales, everyday politics, state policies, and interstate and global politics to analyse some aspects of the new hydropolitical map of the Nile Basin. We argue that nationalism and national interests are not necessarily negative standpoints but that there may instead be a meeting point where regional and national interests join with hydrosolidarity principles. We believe that this meeting point can maximize not only the common good, but also the good from a national interest point of view. For this, it is important not increase collaboration instead of being locked in to the historical narrative of nationalistic culture and historical discourse. This would benefit and improve future sustainability.
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| 3. |
- Aggestam, Karin, et al.
(författare)
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The Nile Basin and Hydrosolidarity
- 2015
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Ingår i: The Middle East in London. - 1743-7598. ; 11:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)
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| 4. |
- 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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| 5. |
- 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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| 6. |
- 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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| 7. |
- 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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| 8. |
- Babbar-Sebens, Meghna, et al.
(författare)
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Training Water Resources Systems Engineers to Communicate : Acting on Observations from On-the-Job Practitioners
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of professional issues in engineering education and practice. - 1052-3928 .- 1943-5541. ; 145:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Engineers face the ongoing challenge to effectively communicate for diverse purposes and audiences across multiple settings. The authors interviewed 10 practicing water resources systems engineers to collect their lived experiences of the use of water resources systems analysis in their workplaces. Thematic analysis was used to identify three key communications hurdles practitioners face: stakeholder influence over the communication process, engineers as central to communication and decision making, and communication as an opportunity to educate stakeholders and engineers. Practitioners recommended classroom activities to overcome these hurdles and better integrate communications training into curricula. Recommendations include (1) expanding the use of case studies, (2) adding opportunities for role plays and team activities, (3) providing students with more practice on how to hold effective discussions, facilitate teamwork, and resolve conflicts, and (4) providing students with the broader contexts for class problems, including how political/institutional constraints, bureaucracies, and social issues may constrain communication and technical solutions. This study shares 22 example activities as online educational resources in a free, open, searchable repository and shows how activities can serve as a bottom-up approach to integrate communications training into the engineering curriculum.
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| 9. |
- Brelsford, Christa, et al.
(författare)
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Developing a sustainability science approach for water systems
- 2020
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 25:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We convened a workshop to enable scientists who study water systems from both social science and physical science perspectives to develop a shared language. This shared language is necessary to bridge a divide between these disciplines’ different conceptual frameworks. As a result of this workshop, we argue that we should view socio-hydrological systems as structurally co-constituted of social, engineered, and natural elements and study the “characteristic management challenges” that emerge from this structure and reoccur across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. This approach is in contrast to theories that view these systems as separately conceptualized natural and social domains connected by bi-directional feedbacks, as is prevalent in much of the water systems research arising from the physical sciences. A focus on emergent characteristic management challenges encourages us to go beyond searching for evidence of feedbacks and instead ask questions such as: What types of innovations have successfully been used to address these challenges? What structural components of the system affect its resilience to hydrological events and through what mechanisms? Are there differences between successful and unsuccessful strategies to solve one of the characteristic management challenges? If so, how are these differences affected by institutional structure and ecological and economic contexts? To answer these questions, social processes must now take center stage in the study and practice of water management. We also argue that water systems are an important class of coupled systems with relevance for sustainability science because they are particularly amenable to the kinds of systematic comparisons that allow knowledge to accumulate. Indeed, the characteristic management challenges we identify are few in number and recur over most of human history and in most geographical locations. This recurrence should allow us to accumulate knowledge to answer the above questions by studying the long historical record of institutional innovations to manage water systems.
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| 10. |
- Cheng, Chuntian, et al.
(författare)
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Reform and renewables in China : The architecture of Yunnan's hydropower dominated electricity market
- 2018
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Ingår i: Renewable & sustainable energy reviews. - : Elsevier BV. - 1364-0321 .- 1879-0690. ; 94, s. 682-693
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Reforms currently under way in China's electricity markets bear important implications for its decarbonization objectives. The southwestern province of Yunnan is among the provinces piloting the current iteration of power market reforms. As such, lessons from Yunnan will inform future market reform and renewable energy policies in China and potentially elsewhere. The dominance of hydropower in Yunnan's energy portfolio and the particular transmission constraints it faces, offer an interesting case study of the challenges of decarbonization. We report on market architecture reforms and aggregate market data collected from the Yunnan Power Exchange. We review four elements in the reformed market architecture. Market pricing rules, transitional quantity controls, the generation rights market, and inter-provincial trade. The specifics of market reform reflect a compromise between decarbonization, inter-provincial competition, grid security and development objectives and contribute to understanding of how the dual transitions of hydropower decarbonization and market liberalization interact. We conclude on six insights regarding the role of the grid operator, security checks on trade, integration of cascade hydropower, the inclusion of renewables in the generation rights market, price controls, and market participant price uncertainty.
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| 11. |
- Danaei, Goodarz, et al.
(författare)
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Iran in transition
- 2019
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Ingår i: The Lancet. - 0140-6736 .- 1474-547X. ; 393:10184, s. 1984-2005
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Being the second-largest country in the Middle East, Iran has a long history of civilisation during which several dynasties have been overthrown and established and health-related structures have been reorganised. Iran has had the replacement of traditional practices with modern medical treatments, emergence of multiple pioneer scientists and physicians with great contributions to the advancement of science, environmental and ecological changes in addition to large-scale natural disasters, epidemics of multiple communicable diseases, and the shift towards non-communicable diseases in recent decades. Given the lessons learnt from political instabilities in the past centuries and the approaches undertaken to overcome health challenges at the time, Iran has emerged as it is today. Iran is now a country with a population exceeding 80 million, mainly inhabiting urban regions, and has an increasing burden of non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, diabetes, malignancies, mental disorders, substance abuse, and road injuries.
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| 12. |
- 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
-
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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| 13. |
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| 14. |
- 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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| 15. |
- Duda Costa, Denis, et al.
(författare)
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Understanding drought dynamics during dry season in Eastern Northeast Brazil
- 2016
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Earth Science. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2296-6463. ; 4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Eastern Northeast Brazil (ENEB) generally experiences a high variability in precipitation in the dry season, with amplitudes that can overcome 500mm. The understanding of this variability can help in mitigating the socio-economic issues related to the planning and management of water resources this region, which is highly vulnerable to drought. This work aims to assess spatio-temporal variability of precipitation during the dry season and investigate the relationships between climate phenomena and drought events in the ENEB, using univariate (Spearman correlation) and multivariate statistical techniques, such as Principal Component Analysis, Cluster Analysis, and Maximum Covariance Analysis. The results indicate that the variability of precipitation in the dry season can be explained mainly (62%) by local physical conditions and climate conditions have a secondary contribution. Further analysis of the larger anomalous events suggests that the state of Atlantic and Pacific oceans can govern the occurrence of those events, and the conditions of Atlantic Ocean can be considered a potential modulator of anomalous phenomena of precipitation in ENEB.
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| 16. |
- Fazel, Nasim, et al.
(författare)
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Regionalization and spatial analysis of precipitation of the Urmia Lake Basin, Iran
- 2015
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Ingår i: World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2015 : Floods, Droughts, and Ecosystems - Proceedings of the 2015 World Environmental and Water Resources Congress - Floods, Droughts, and Ecosystems - Proceedings of the 2015 World Environmental and Water Resources Congress. - Reston, VA : American Society of Civil Engineers. - 9780784479162 ; , s. 1101-1107
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The spatial patterns of precipitation regarding physiography and atmospheric circulations in the Lake Urmia Basin have been investigated. Daily rainfall time series for the 50 most reliable precipitation stations for the period 1980-2010 were analyzed to detect the regional precipitation pattern. To identify rainfall homogeneous regions, principal component analysis was applied to the precipitation dataset. Agglomerative hierarchical clustering analysis using the Ward and Euclidean distance methods revealed three distinctive precipitation regions in the basin influenced by topography and lake. The first region (G1) covers the north and northeastern part of the Lake Urmia. G2 includes stations located in south and southeastern part of the basin, while G3 covers the western part of the lake basin. The results from this study can be used to better plan agricultural land use, cropping patterns and water management in the delineated homogeneous rainfall regions.
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| 17. |
- Fazel, Nasim, et al.
(författare)
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Regionalization of precipitation characteristics in Iran's Lake Urmia basin
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Theoretical and Applied Climatology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0177-798X .- 1434-4483. ; 132:1-2, s. 363-373
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Lake Urmia in northwest Iran, once one of the largest hypersaline lakes in the world, has shrunk by almost 90% in area and 80% in volume during the last four decades. To improve the understanding of regional differences in water availability throughout the region and to refine the existing information on precipitation variability, this study investigated the spatial pattern of precipitation for the Lake Urmia basin. Daily rainfall time series from 122 precipitation stations with different record lengths were used to extract 15 statistical descriptors comprising 25th percentile, 75th percentile, and coefficient of variation for annual and seasonal total precipitation. Principal component analysis in association with cluster analysis identified three main homogeneous precipitation groups in the lake basin. The first sub-region (group 1) includes stations located in the center and southeast; the second sub-region (group 2) covers mostly northern and northeastern part of the basin, and the third sub-region (group 3) covers the western and southern edges of the basin. Results of principal component (PC) and clustering analyses showed that seasonal precipitation variation is the most important feature controlling the spatial pattern of precipitation in the lake basin. The 25th and 75th percentiles of winter and autumn are the most important variables controlling the spatial pattern of the first rotated principal component explaining about 32% of the total variance. Summer and spring precipitation variations are the most important variables in the second and third rotated principal components, respectively. Seasonal variation in precipitation amount and seasonality are explained by topography and influenced by the lake and westerly winds that are related to the strength of the North Atlantic Oscillation. Despite using incomplete time series with different lengths, the identified sub-regions are physically meaningful.
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| 18. |
- Guégan, Marion, et al.
(författare)
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Climate warming effects on hydropower demand and pricing in California
- 2011
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Ingår i: World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2011 : Bearing Knowledge for Sustainability - Proceedings of the 2011 World Environmental and Water Resources Congress - Bearing Knowledge for Sustainability - Proceedings of the 2011 World Environmental and Water Resources Congress. - Reston, VA : American Society of Civil Engineers. - 9780784411735 ; , s. 1298-1307
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- High-elevation hydropower units in California might be sensitive to climate warming since they have been designed to take advantage of snowmelt and have low built-in storage capacities. Snowmelt is expected to shift to earlier in the year and the system might not be able to store sufficient water for release in high-electricity-demanding periods. Previous studies have tried to explore the climate warming effects on California's high-elevation hydropower system by focusing on the supply side only (exploring the effects of hydrological changes on generation and revenues). This study extends the previous work by also considering climate warming effects on hydropower demand and pricing. A long-term price forecasting tool is developed using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models. California's Energy-Based Hydropower Optimization Model (EBHOM) is then applied to estimate the adaptability of California's high-elevation hydropower system to climate warming considering simultaneous changes in supply, demand and pricing. The model is run for dry and wet warming scenarios, representing a range of hydrological changes under climate change.
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| 19. |
- Guegan, Marion, et al.
(författare)
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Developing a module for estimating climate warming effects on hydropower pricing in California
- 2012
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Ingår i: Energy Policy. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-6777 .- 0301-4215. ; 42, s. 261-271
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Climate warming is expected to alter hydropower generation in California through affecting the annual stream-flow regimes and reducing snowpack. On the other hand, increased temperatures are expected to increase hydropower demand for cooling in warm periods while decreasing demand for heating in winter, subsequently altering the annual hydropower pricing patterns. The resulting variations in hydropower supply and pricing regimes necessitate changes in reservoir operations to minimize the revenue losses from climate warming. Previous studies in California have only explored the effects of hydrological changes on hydropower generation and revenues. This study builds a long-term hydropower pricing estimation tool, based on artificial neural network (ANN), to develop pricing scenarios under different climate warming scenarios. Results suggest higher average hydropower prices under climate warming scenarios than under historical climate. The developed tool is integrated with California's Energy-Based Hydropower Optimization Model (EBHOM) to facilitate simultaneous consideration of climate warming on hydropower supply, demand and pricing. EBHOM estimates an additional 5% drop in annual revenues under a dry warming scenario when climate change impacts on pricing are considered, with respect to when such effects are ignored, underlining the importance of considering changes in hydropower demand and pricing in future studies and policy making. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 20. |
- Haghighi, Erfan, et al.
(författare)
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The water footprint of water conservation using shade balls in California
- 2018
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Ingår i: Nature Sustainability. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2398-9629. ; 1:7, s. 358-360
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The interest in quick technologic fixes to complex water problems increases during extreme hydroclimatic events. However, past evidence shows that such fixes might be associated with unintended consequences. We revisit the idea of using shade balls in the Los Angeles reservoir to reduce evaporation during the recent drought in California, and question its sustainability by revealing the water footprint of this technologic water conservation solution.
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| 21. |
- Hjorth, Peder, et al.
(författare)
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Adaptive Water Management : On the Need for Using the Post-WWII Science in Water Governance
- 2023
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Ingår i: Water Resources Management. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0920-4741 .- 1573-1650. ; 37:6-7, s. 2247-2270
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although the UN concluded, already in 1997, that water would be the most contentious issue of the 21st century, water governance is still confused, nearly everywhere. Even the severe impacts of escalating water bankruptcy and global warming have so far failed to incur a marked improvement in governance systems. The global community has adopted sustainable development as a common vision and guide for the future. Yet, the adoption of the underlying principles of sustainable development has been slow in the water sector and elsewhere. Despite the realization that water governance is a political issue, the near-universal neoliberal agenda tends to only employ technologic and economic solutions to address water problems. This paper presents a historical overview, from the end of the Second World War (WWII) and onwards, of events that could, or should, have had an impact on water management frameworks. It evidences some important consequences of the institutional rigidity exposed during that period. The paper also turns to the fields of science, policy, and management, to pinpoint failures in the translation of political rhetoric as well as new scientific findings into change at the operational level. It explores how an updated knowledge base could serve a quest for sustainable water governance strategies. It is argued that a persistent failure to learn is an important reason behind the dire state that we are now in. As a result, water management is still based on century-old, technocratic, and instrumental methodologies that fail to take advantage of important scientific advancements since WWII and remain unable to properly deal with real-world complexities and uncertainties. The paper concludes that when it is linked to a transformation of the institutional superstructure, adaptive water management (AWM), a framework rooted in systems thinking, emerges as a prominent way to embark on a needed, radical transformation of the water governance systems.
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| 22. |
- Hjorth, Peder, et al.
(författare)
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Systems Analysis to Promote Frames and Mental Models for Sustainable Water Management
- 2013
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Ingår i: Sciforum Electronic Conference Series. - Basel, Switzerland : MDPI. ; 3
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the water sector, there have been numerous failures in projects aiming at sustainable development and there have been some, but less numerous, examples of successes. However, the most striking observation is the near universal failure to learn from these examples. Somehow, scientists and decision makers have allowed the indications of new approaches and opportunities go undetected because they did not fit with their mindsets or perceptual apparatus. This paper discusses some of the mental frames that have hampered the progress towards sustainable development. It analyzes where these frames come from, who is promoting or defending them, and what can be done to change these frames in ways that are more in line with the basic tenets of sustainable development. It is found that there is a lack of consistency in the interpretation of sustainable development. Most sustainability initiatives have failed because the environment and development were never properly brought together. The “environment” is where we live: and “development” is what we all do in attempting to improve our lot within that abode. The two are unseparable (Our Common Future). Thus, there is a need to draw on diverse disciplinary perspectives and to cut across sectoral boundaries to counter the monovalent approaches that have dominated mainstream enquiry and practice. To that end, systems analysis can help produce enabling frameworks for process changes. These frameworks should define general objectives and means of verification of progress without specifying uniform approaches and activities. Systems analysis is also a methodology helping to make sure that problems posed are adequately defined and that helps detecting biases in goal formulation stemming either from dominant actors or from “solution oriented approaches”.
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| 23. |
- Hui, Rui, et al.
(författare)
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Adaptive water infrastructure planning for nonstationary hydrology
- 2018
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Ingår i: Advances in Water Resources. - : Elsevier BV. - 0309-1708 .- 1872-9657. ; 118, s. 83-94
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The uncertainty of a changing climate raises challenges for water infrastructure planning and design. Not accounting for nonstationarity may result in under-designed structures that fail too frequently, or over-designed structures that are economically inefficient. This concern is magnified by uncertainty in the long-term frequency and magnitude of future extreme events. Planning strategies that allow adaptations over a structure's life could improve both reliability and economic efficiency. This study develops a method to inform adaptive water infrastructure planning with uncertain hydrologic and other forms of nonstationarity, applied to levee system planning. A stochastic dynamic programming model including a Markov process is developed for infrastructure planning with uncertain nonstationarity in flood frequency. Bayes' theorem is used to update peak flow probabilities conditioned on observed past peak flows and to update expected residual flood damages over time. A levee system planning problem with a numerical example from California illustrates the approach to derive optimal levee heights over time, and economic values of adapting to uncertain nonstationary flood risk. The projected range of probabilistic hydrology scenarios affects the optimal results, particularly in later planning stages as hydrology scenarios diverge with time. Adaptive planning strategies allowing more levee upgrades over time slightly lowers the overall cost and provides better flood protection than one-time construction under nonstationary hydrology for any climate in the example. Compared to a known future nonstationary hydrology, incorporating uncertain nonstationary climate results in higher levees being planned for observed severe hydrology scenarios in later stages. The overall present value cost with uncertain nonstationary climate depends on rates of change in peak flow distribution parameters in future hydrology scenarios.
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| 24. |
- Khatami, Sina, et al.
(författare)
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What is drought? The scientific understanding of drought: the primary step towards resolving Iran's water crisis
- 2015
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Ingår i: Etemad Daily Newspaper, No. 3193. ; , s. 7-7
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- Abstract in Uncoded languagesIn this article we discuss four basic approaches to characterising droughts namely meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, and socioeconomic. In the first three approaches, drought is defined and measured as a physical phenomenon primarily related to the precipitation shortfall. Socioeconomic drought, nonetheless, is described and determined as the 'supply' and 'demand' in terms of water shortage in different socioeconomic systems. The specific case of Iran’s drought and water crisis is the main focus of this article, and is briefly compared to California’s ongoing drought. In cases such as Iran, the socioeconomic drought is a result of inefficient and unsustainable management of water resources. Therefore, we cannot simply associate droughts with climate variability and/or change. Furthermore, due to large uncertainties in climate modelling and water management scenarios, long-term prediction of drought is impossible.
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| 25. |
- Khazaei, Bahram, et al.
(författare)
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Climatic or regionally induced by humans? Tracing hydro-climatic and land-use changes to better understand the Lake Urmia tragedy
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Hydrology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0022-1694 .- 1879-2707. ; 569, s. 203-217
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Lake Urmia-a shallow endemic hypersaline lake in northwest Iran-has undergone a dramatic decline in its water level (WL), by about 8 m, since 1995. The primary cause of the WL decline in Lake Urmia has been debated in the scientific literature, regarding whether it has been predominantly driven by atmospheric climate change or by human activities in the watershed landscape. Using available climate, hydrological, and vegetation data for the period 1981-2015, this study analyzes and aims to explain the lake desiccation based on other observed hydro-climatic and vegetation changes in the Lake Urmia watershed and classical exploratory statistical methods. The analysis accounts for the relationships between atmospheric climate change (precipitation P, temperature T), and hydrological (soil moisture SM, and WL) and vegetation cover (VC; including agricultural crops and other vegetation) changes in the landscape. Results show that P, T, and SM changes cannot explain the sharp decline in lake WL since 2000. Instead, the agricultural increase of VC in the watershed correlates well with the lake WL change, indicating this human-driven VC and associated irrigation expansion as the dominant human driver of the Lake Urmia desiccation. Specifically, the greater transpiration from the expanded and increasingly irrigated agricultural crops implies increased total evapotranspiration and associated consumptive use of water (inherently related to the irrigation and water diversion and storage developments in the watershed). Thereby the runoff from the watershed into the lake has decreased, and the remaining smaller inflow to the lake has been insufficient for keeping up the previous lake WL, causing the observed WL drop to current conditions.
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| 26. |
- Madani, Kaveh, et al.
(författare)
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Climate change impacts on high-elevation hydroelectricity in California
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of Hydrology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0022-1694. ; 510, s. 153-163
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While only about 30% of California's usable water storage capacity lies at higher elevations, high-elevation (above 300 m) hydropower units generate, on average, 74% of California's in-state hydroelectricity. In general, high-elevation plants have small man-made reservoirs and rely mainly on snowpack. Their low built-in storage capacity is a concern with regard to climate warming. Snowmelt is expected to shift to earlier in the year, and the system may not be able to store sufficient water for release in high-demand periods. Previous studies have explored the climate warming effects on California's high-elevation hydropower by focusing on the supply side (exploring the effects of hydrological changes on generation and revenues) ignoring the warming effects on hydroelectricity demand and pricing. This study extends the previous work by simultaneous consideration of climate change effects on high-elevation hydropower supply and pricing in California. The California's Energy-Based Hydropower Optimization Model (EBHOM 2.0) is applied to evaluate the adaptability of California's high-elevation hydropower system to climate warming, considering the warming effects on hydroelectricity supply and pricing. The model's results relative to energy generation, energy spills, reservoir energy storage, and average shadow prices of energy generation and storage capacity expansion are examined and discussed. These results are compared with previous studies to emphasize the need to consider climate change effects on hydroelectricity demand and pricing when exploring the effects of climate change on hydropower operations. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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| 27. |
- Madani, Kaveh
(författare)
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How International Economic Sanctions Harm the Environment
- 2020
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Ingår i: Earth's Future. - 2328-4277. ; 8:12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- As soft political tools, economic sanctions aim at isolating a sanctioned state and hurt its economy to force it to change course, policies, and actions. In response to sanctions and to evade their grip, a sanctioned state adopts a range of survivalist, aggressive, and unsustainable policies that reduce the economic pressure of sanctions at the expense of accelerated environmental degradation. While economic sanctions cannot be blamed as the cause of environmental problems in sanctioned states, their role in catalyzing environmental degradation is noteworthy. This paper takes the first step in setting the theoretical ground for exploring the environmental implications of sanctions by developing a generic causal model that explains how economic sanctions can impact the environment. It is shown that sanctions lower the priority of the environmental sector in the public policy agenda in a sanctioned state and increase the natural resource-intensity of its economy. It is argued that although the environmental damages of sanctions are mainly unintended by the sanctioning and sanctioned states, such damages are unavoidable in practice. The study calls for attention to the transgenerational and transboundary environmental impacts of economic sanctions and their justice and human rights implications for which the sanctioning and sanctioned states must be held accountable.
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| 28. |
- Madani, Kaveh, et al.
(författare)
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Iran's Socio-economic Drought : Challenges of a Water-Bankrupt Nation
- 2016
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Ingår i: Iranian Studies. - : Cambridge University Press (CUP). - 0021-0862 .- 1475-4819. ; 49:6, s. 997-1016
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Iran is currently experiencing serious water problems. Frequent droughts coupled with over-abstraction of surface and groundwater through a large network of hydraulic infrastructure and deep wells have escalated the nation's water situation to a critical level. This is evidenced by drying lakes, rivers and wetlands, declining groundwater levels, land subsidence, water quality degradation, soil erosion, desertification and more frequent dust storms. This paper overviews the major drivers of Iran's water problems. It is argued that while climatic changes and economic sanctions are commonly blamed as the main drivers of water problems, Iran is mainly suffering from a socio-economic drought i.e. water bankruptcy, where water demand exceeds the natural water supply. In theory, this problem can be resolved by re-establishing the balance between water supply and demand through developing additional sources of water supply and implementing aggressive water demand reduction plans. Nevertheless, the current structure of the water governance system in Iran and the absence of a comprehensive understanding of the root causes of the problem leave minimal hope of developing sustainable solutions to Iran's unprecedented water problems.
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| 29. |
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| 30. |
- Madani, Kaveh, et al.
(författare)
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Socio-Hydrology : A New Understanding to Unite or a New Science to Divide?
- 2020
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Ingår i: Water. - : MDPI AG. - 2073-4441. ; 12:7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The socio-hydrology community has been very successful in promoting the need for taking the human factor into account in the mainstream hydrology literature since 2012. However, the interest in studying and modeling human-water systems is not new and pre-existed the post-2012 socio-hydrology. So, it is critical to ask what socio-hydrology has been able to offer that would have been unachievable using the existing methods, tools, and analysis frameworks. Thus far, the socio-hydrology studies show a strong overlap with what has already been in the literature, especially in the water resources systems and coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) areas. Nevertheless, the work in these areas has been generally dismissed by the socio-hydrology literature. This paper overviews some of the general concerns about originality, practicality, and contributions of socio-hydrology. It is argued that while in theory, a common sense about the need for considering humans as an integral component of water resources systems models can strengthen our coupled human-water systems research, the current approaches and trends in socio-hydrology can make this interest area less inclusive and interdisciplinary.
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| 31. |
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| 32. |
- Maghrebi, Mohsen, et al.
(författare)
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Iran's Agriculture in the Anthropocene
- 2020
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Ingår i: Earth's Future. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2328-4277. ; 8:9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The anthropogenic impacts of development and frequent droughts have limited Iran's water availability. This has major implications for Iran's agricultural sector which is responsible for about 90% of water consumption at the national scale. This study investigates if declining water availability impacted agriculture in Iran. Using the Mann‐Kendall and Sen's slope estimator methods, we explored the changes in Iran's agricultural production and area during the 1981‐2013 period. Despite decreasing water availability during this period, irrigated agricultural production and area continuously increased. This unsustainable agricultural development, which would have been impossible without the over‐abstraction of surface and ground water resources, has major long‐term water, food, environmental, and human security implications for Iran.
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| 33. |
- Mesgaran, Mohsen B., et al.
(författare)
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Iran's Land Suitability for Agriculture
- 2017
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 7:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Increasing population has posed insurmountable challenges to agriculture in the provision of future food security, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region where biophysical conditions are not well-suited for agriculture. Iran, as a major agricultural country in the MENA region, has long been in the quest for food self-sufficiency, however, the capability of its land and water resources to realize this goal is largely unknown. Using very high-resolution spatial data sets, we evaluated the capacity of Iran's land for sustainable crop production based on the soil properties, topography, and climate conditions. We classified Iran's land suitability for cropping as (million ha): very good 0.4% (0.6), good 2.2% (3.6), medium 7.9% (12.8), poor 11.4% (18.5), very poor 6.3% (10.2), unsuitable 60.0% (97.4), and excluded areas 11.9% (19.3). In addition to overarching limitations caused by low precipitation, low soil organic carbon, steep slope, and high soil sodium content were the predominant soil and terrain factors limiting the agricultural land suitability in Iran. About 50% of the Iran's existing croplands are located in low-quality lands, representing an unsustainable practice. There is little room for cropland expansion to increase production but redistribution of cropland to more suitable areas may improve sustainability and reduce pressure on water resources, land, and ecosystem in Iran.
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| 34. |
- Mirchi, Ali, et al.
(författare)
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Water resources management in a homogenizing world: Averting the Growth and Underinvestment trajectory
- 2014
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Ingår i: Water Resources Research. - 0043-1397. ; 50:9, s. 7515-7526
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biotic homogenization, a de facto symptom of a global biodiversity crisis, underscores the urgency of reforming water resources management to focus on the health and viability of ecosystems. Global population and economic growth, coupled with inadequate investment in maintenance of ecological systems, threaten to degrade environmental integrity and ecosystem services that support the global socioeconomic system, indicative of a system governed by the Growth and Underinvestment (G&U) archetype. Water resources management is linked to biotic homogenization and degradation of system integrity through alteration of water systems, ecosystem dynamics, and composition of the biota. Consistent with the G&U archetype, water resources planning primarily treats ecological considerations as exogenous constraints rather than integral, dynamic, and responsive parts of the system. It is essential that the ecological considerations be made objectives of water resources development plans to facilitate the analysis of feedbacks and potential trade-offs between socioeconomic gains and ecological losses. We call for expediting a shift to ecosystem-based management of water resources, which requires a better understanding of the dynamics and links between water resources management actions, ecological side-effects, and associated long-term ramifications for sustainability. To address existing knowledge gaps, models that include dynamics and estimated thresholds for regime shifts or ecosystem degradation need to be developed. Policy levers for implementation of ecosystem-based water resources management include shifting away from growth-oriented supply management, better demand management, increased public awareness, and institutional reform that promotes adaptive and transdisciplinary management approaches.
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| 35. |
- 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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| 36. |
- Nazemi, Ali, et al.
(författare)
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Urban water security : Emerging discussion and remaining challenges
- 2018
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Ingår i: Sustainable cities and society. - : Elsevier BV. - 2210-6707. ; 41, s. 925-928
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Human livelihood requires reliable water supply and protection from water-related hazards. Significant growth in population and anthropogenic activities along with unfolding effects of global environmental change have enormously increased the vulnerability of human systems to changes in water quantity and/or quality. Addressing such vulnerabilities has high management priority in urban regions due to the concertation of population and socio-economic activities. This has resulted into emerging various discussions around the concept of urban water security. Here we provide a brief overview on the water-related threats to human society and the context of water security, with a greater goal of recognizing operational and social challenges along with science needs in urban environments.
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| 37. |
- 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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| 38. |
- Tabari, Hossein, et al.
(författare)
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The contribution of anthropogenic influence to more anomalous extreme precipitation in Europe
- 2020
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Ingår i: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 1748-9326. ; 15:10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Anthropogenic influences can modulate the low-frequency variability of extreme precipitation and increase the likelihood of flooding events. It is not, however, clear how much and in what manner the low-frequency variability has changed in recent decades as global warming has intensified. Here, we investigate the contribution of anthropogenic influences to the time evolution of extreme precipitation anomalies in different seasons using Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) and CMIP5 model simulations and observations over Europe. Our results show a latitudinal dependence of changes in extreme precipitation anomalies for all seasons due to anthropogenic impacts. While the contribution of anthropogenic influences to extreme precipitation anomalies at low latitudes (<50 degrees) is less than 8% in all seasons, it goes up to 26% and 41% at mid (50 degrees-60 degrees) and high (>60 degrees) latitudes. Without the offsetting effect of anthropogenic aerosols, anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases alone should have produced larger anomalies than observed. For all seasons, the more extreme the precipitation, the larger the anthropogenic influences.
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