Sharif Digital Repository

The large heterogeneity in soil surface conditions makes it impracticable to obtain reliable estimates of soil hydraulic parameters for areas larger than few squared kilometers. However, identifying these parameters on a global scale is essential for many hydrological and climatic applications. In this study, a new approach named Drainage from Drydown (DfD) is proposed to estimate the coefficients of drainage using soil moisture observations. DfD firstly selects multiple drydown events when surface runoff and evapotranspiration rates are negligible compared to the drainage rate. Secondly, by inverting the soil water balance equation, the drainage coefficients are obtained. Synthetic... 

Mine tailings are the most common materials that are used in construction of tailings dams. Due to high level of environmental hazard and serious consequences that are associated with tailings dam failure, proper design of tailings dams is an important factor in mining industry. Water level fluctuation, change in permeability of dam foundation, seismic loads, and excessive settlements are the most common reasons of failure, particularly in upstream type tailings dams. Due to low shear strength of wet tailings, drying of tailing material is very common in practice during the dam construction. In hot climate, the received solar energy at the soil surface converts to soil heat flux, air heat... 

The rapid shrinkage of Lake Urmia over the past two decades has raised serious environmental concerns. Several restoration plans have been proposed to reduce agricultural water consumption to supply a remarkable fraction of the lake's environmental flow requirement. However, an accurate and realistic evaluation of the effectiveness of these plans in reducing agricultural water consumption across the basin is still poorly understood. This study assessed the water-saving potential of agricultural alteration in a snow-dominated catchment in the Lake Urmia Basin. In particular, we explored the impact of crop pattern alteration via reducing the cultivation area and employing different irrigation... 

Rare earth elements (REEs) are becoming significant due to their huge applications in many industries, large-scale mining and refining activities. Increasing usage of such metals pose negative environmental impacts. In this research ICP-MS has been used to analyze soil samples collected from former ex-mining areas in the depths of 0–20 cm, 21–40 cm, and 41–60 cm of residential, mining, natural, and industrial areas of Perak. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that soil samples taken from different mining, industrial, residential, and natural areas are separated into four clusters. It was observed that REEs were abundant in most of the samples from mining areas. Concentration of the...