Sharif Digital Repository

Biodiesel is an attractive renewable energy in Iran. However, the concerns for food security, emissions, and water requirement move us towards developing the analytical framework to study emission-water nexus of biodiesel via the multi objective sustainable planning of biodiesel supply chain. Here, the literature of biodiesel in Iran is comprehensively reviewed and main issues are discussed. Then, a supply chain planning model is applied to depict the optimal path ways to minimize costs, net emission, and water use in Iran during 25 years. The microalgae via open ponds and jatropha cultivation reduce the total costs and improve negative emissions. The jatropha optimizes the water use and... 

Many countries use a single water meter for multiple units within a building. This creates a cost externality where the cost of water consumed is spread over all units. Using administrative data from Tehran Water and Wastewater Co. for 2013 and 2014, we find an increase in the number of units on a communal meter on average increases per unit use by 0.4%. Estimation at different levels of units reveals that almost all communal meters have higher per unit water use. The results suggest that removing this externality could save 2.7% water consumption in our sample. © 2018 Elsevier B.V  

Understanding the time water takes as it moves from rain or snowmelt through the terrestrial system to arrive as stream discharge, or evapotranspiration (ET) is an important hydrologic quantity. We develop a Lagrangian particle tracking method to capture transient residence times from source to either ET or outflow in an integrated hydrologic model. This method is parallel and efficiently captures time evolution of parcels of water in the model and tracks the source of water for hydrograph or ET separation. We demonstrate this model using hypothetical hillslope simulations driven by snow or rain dominated forcing and two different land cover types. We show that land cover and forcing both... 

Water shortage is the main limitation for agricultural production in many parts of the world. Drought or unavailability of water may seriously limit plant growth as well as yield. A pot experiment was carried out to evaluate the effects of various irrigation strategies, i.e., Full (FI), deficit (DI) and partial root-zone drying (PRD) on physiological, biochemical and yield-related attributes of cotton crop. Irrigation treatments started 60 days after planting and lasted for 60 days. For FI and DI, 100% and 50% of evapotranspiration (ET) was replaced by irrigating the entire pot surface every 4–5 days. For PRD, root system was split into two equal halves and during each irrigation event, only... 

Dam construction in arid and semiarid regions is generally related to the risk of increased salinity, due to water passage in contact with salty formations. Hence, it is important to take reservoir thermal and salinity stratification into account in operational rules. In the present study, a simulation–optimization model was developed to determine the amount of water release from various outlets to discharge the brine from hypolimnion layer considering the downstream water quality limitations. The most appropriate time, rate, and concentration to release brine were determined based on water consumption conditions and downstream water demand and river ecology characteristics. The proposed... 

Irrigated agriculture is the principal consumer of fresh water resources. Most countries do not have a precise measurement of water consumption for irrigation. In this study, an innovative approach is proposed that allows for estimation of irrigation water use at the catchment scale based on satellite soil moisture data. To this end, the SM2RAIN algorithm, which had been originally developed for estimation of rainfall from the soil moisture observations, is adopted. The satellite soil moisture observations obtained from Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) along with different rainfall and evapotranspiration (ET) products in the period 2012–2015 are used as the input to the... 

Evapotranspiration is one of the main components of water and energy balance. In this study, we compare two ET products, suitable for regional analysis at high spatial resolution: The recent WaPOR product developed by FAO and METRIC algorithm. WaPOR is based on ETLook, which is a two-source model and relies on microwave images. WaPOR is unique as it has no limitation under cloudy days, but METRIC is limited by clouds. METRIC and WaPOR are more sensitive to land surface temperature and soil moisture, respectively. Using two years (2010 and 2014) of data over Lake Urmia basin, we show that in most areas, ET from METRIC is higher than WaPOR and the difference has an ascending trend with the... 

Urmia Lake River Basin (ULRB) is one of the most important habitats in the world and one of the major agricultural regions in Iran. On average, the ratio of irrigation to evapotranspiration in this basin is more than 73%. Investigating the irrigation water requirement pattern changes and the spatial distribution of evapotranspiration during the basin development period on a regional scale play important roles in understanding the basin situation. In this study, the actual evapotranspiration has been estimated by SEBAL model. By estimating the precipitation distribution in the basin, the agricultural irrigation water requirement pattern has been calculated using the land use map in 1995, 2010... 

Precipitation (P), plant water use, and evaporation from the soil surface control the travel time of streamflow (Q) and evapotranspiration (ET) in a complex way. However, the impact of soil moisture and energy availability on the travel time distribution (TTD) of evaporated and transpired waters are yet less understood. In this study, we investigate how the seasonal variability of P and ET in terms of phase shift and rate influences the temporal dynamics of TTDs. To this end, we choose four contrasting climate types described as in-phase P and ET, out-of-phase P and ET, year-round constant P with seasonal ET, and year-round constant ET with seasonal P. We use a physically-based hydrological... 

Thermal power generation needs great volumes of water for cooling purposes. A multi-period Low Water Generation Expansion Planning (LW-GEP) model is proposed to plan the future generation mix including type, capacity, time of installation, and proper cooling system of generation technologies to supply the future electric peak loads under the water resource limitations. Different types of generation technologies with conventional and modern cooling systems are considered as expansion candidates in the proposed LW-GEP model. The access of candidate and existing power plants to the water resources are considered. Renewable resources as water smart solutions are integrated in the proposed energy... 

One of the underlying factors in the conservation and development of urban green spaces is the available water resources use for green areas in each region. The primary purpose of this study is to introduce the integration of a proper simulation method for runoff along with AHP-PROMETHEE decision-making method for water resources management in urban basins. The application of this approach was investigated in the city Buin Zahra of Qazvin Province of Iran. In the first step by using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), the available water resources in the case study were weighted. In the second step, the water resources of the municipal and residential wells and water collected by... 

Wet cooling towers are one of the most water-intensive technologies, which are widely used in air conditioning applications, especially in dry regions. Considering the current water crisis around the world, it is essential to improve the design of these cooling towers to reduce their water consumption, while maintaining their cooling performance. Makeup water of cooling tower is usually a constant-temperature water which is cold enough to condensate the moisture content of the cooling tower exhaust air. Therefore, it has great potential to recycle water evaporation of cooling towers, which is not considered so far. This paper investigates a novel design for cooling towers utilising the... 

The challenges of water resources sustainable development are enormous. Around the globe, the increasing use of water coupled with environmental deterioration calls for sustainable development of the limited water resources. As a significant part of the world's population still lacks access to safe water and adequate sanitation, and as global urbanization continues to increase, continuous, comprehensive, coordinated and cooperative water resources management is required for the sustainable future of urban areas. The objective of this study was to assess water resources sustainable development for selected urban areas around the world. Using centralized databases of international agencies for... 

Iranian water authority has recently announced that one of the effective ways to avoid unprecedented high water consumption in Iran's agriculture sector is to increase water price. This paper analyzes the feasibility of this policy by using a hydro-economic approach with the aim to consider the role of water pricing in agricultural water management. Such an analysis was conducted through comparing price of water consumed for producing selected agricultural crops (i.e. wheat, sugar beets, onion, tomato, barley, potato, corn, alfalfa hay and watermelon) in a case study on two provinces (East Azarbaijan and West Azarbaijan) in Iran to that in the state of California (CA) in the USA. According... 

As concerning with water insecurity driven by water scarcity threatens the lives and livelihoods of humanity worldwide, urban water demand management is focused on promoting residential water conservation behaviors (WCBs) as a critical policy response to water scarcity. However, urban water conservation initiatives cannot be successful unless households involve in residential WCBs voluntarily by adopting water curtailment and/or water-efficiency actions. Thus, understanding motivations and mechanisms underlying accepting these two types of WCBs and interpreting their distinctions are primary policy considerations to make sustainable water consumption behaviors. Hence, the purpose of this...