Sharif Digital Repository

Water resources planning and management projects are done in order to accomplish several goals. Moreover, social, environmental, political etc impacts of such projects increase the complexity of the problem of choosing the best alternative among others. The project of diversion of water form Zab Watershed into Lake Urmia Watershed is one of these projects which regarding water demands and problems in Lake Urmia Watershed and also Zab Watershed water resources that exceed its water demands has been considered. Therefore, after conducting research studies, five locations have been determined as potential places to build a dam on the Zab River and transferring its water to Lake Urmia Watershed.... 

Several countries in the Middle East – North Africa (MENA) region have been always faced drought in their histories, so they implementing many strategies to manage vital water resources for many years. Because of the volume of water available for food production has not been sufficient to meet increasing demands, it has became a critical issue today, to optimize the consumption of water. One of the best policies is to use financial tools to adjust the water usage.In this research we have studied the effects of two scenarios on the volume of water consumption. The firs scenario is to increase the water price, and we have studied the consumers’ reactions. The second scenario is to lend the... 

In recent years, water issues have been the focus of increasing international concern and debate. Agriculture is not only the world's largest water user in terms of volume, it is also a relatively low-value, low-efficiency water user. These facts are forcing governments and donors to rethink the economic, social and environmental implications of irrigation projects. Population growth, increase in water demand, the extended drought and utilization of too much water for agricultural, have been made water conflicts over water resources. Due to the drought has a significant economic and social impact on the irrigated agricultural sector, Water markets based on transferable water rights developed... 

Tehran, the capital of Iran, like many megacities in the world is encountered with increasing freshwater demand and water resources limitation because of the rapid growth of population. In spite of the existence of neighboring water recourses; such as Karaj-Dam, Latian-Dam and Lar-Dam, and large usage of groundwater, the management of urban water demand is one of the biggest problems with this city. In this thesis, water reuse and wastewater recycling are considered as a sustainable solution for water supply and wastewater management of Tehran. A linear programming optimization model with the object of cost minimization is used to allocate water between users and resources, concerning the... 

Incline in the population and civilization, development of agriculture, and expansion of industries, in addition to limitations on surface and groundwater resources necessitate the existence of correct and efficient planning of management and utilization of water resources. Prediction of behavioral models of changes in water resources systems, influenced by utilizing strategies, absolutely helps stakeholders for conservative development of these resources. System dynamics is an object oriented method that is based on system's feedback. Not only it gives real description of complex systems, but also it provides the ability to influence effectively in development of the model for the user. The... 

Conservation of water and protection of water resources is considered as an important and fundamental element in sustainable development. In the southern regions of our country, access to fresh water is very difficult and it is very costly to supply. In Kish Island with an area of approximately 9000 Ha, Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) is very important in terms of water supply and the environment and the natural ecosystem. Due to the confined and limited water resources available, and its reducing per capita, IWRM will become more important. In this regard,the Island's water resources (conventional and unconventional) need to be analyzed. Water systems can be modeled using... 

In this paper we seek to find the contribution of groundwater in irrigation agriculture in Iran. We use nationwide panel data of agricultural production in the period of 1993-2013. The results show us differences in productivity of agricultural outputs due to availability of groundwater. Panel data allows us to control regional factors like soil fertility affecting the productivity. We are looking for the main contributors to groundwater usage. Population growth in demand side and groundwater availability in supply side seem to be the most important factors  

Environmental flows supply critical contributions to wetland health and economic development, while wetlands are one of the richest ecosystems due to diversity of the ecological species. The Shadegan Wetland is the located in the south-west of Iran, at the top of the Persian Gulf. It is the largest wetland of the country with an area of almost 400,000 hectares. The wetland plays a significant role, both hydrological and ecological in the natural functioning of the northern coast of the Gulf. Moreover, Shadegan Protected Zone is of high economic and social importance, as its vegetation is assumed the main source of feeding the wildlife species. On the other hand, the wetland has the potential... 

Future of the Karkheh River Basin and its people’s livelihoods clearly depends on natural resources like water, soil, vegetation and livestock. As water is the most limiting natural resource in this basin, any increase in water productivity will almost certainly benefit rural livelihoods. To ensure the sustainability of the improvements in water productivity, assessment of the possible impacts of climate change on hydrology and water resources in the basin is necessary. In this study the potential impacts of climate change on hydrology in the Karkheh River Basin were assessed using a macroscale hydrology model driven by 21st century simulations of temperature and precipitation downscaled... 

Groundwater resources are considered as important resources of fresh water specifically in arid and semi-arid regions like Iran. Urmia Lake (UL) basin is one of these regions where groundwater resources play an important role in supplying water and due to inappropriate water resources management during the last two decades it has faced serious problems, like declination of water level in UL. Groundwater and surface water form an integrated system in the UL basin and have a mutual effect on each other. Hence, any improvement in exploitation of aquifers in that region could benefit UL water demand management. Appropriate water resources management in Miandoab plain which transfer almost 50... 

Considering that the agricultural sector is the largest consumer of water in the basin of Lake Urmia, it seems necessary to provide comprehensive methods of water resources management and formulate appropriate policies to increase water productivity in this sector. For this reason, in this research, we examine the effects of creating a water market in the basin of Lake Urmia. For this purpose, models of agricultural economics and positive mathematical programming techniques at the regional level have been used for modeling to analyze the various effects of water market creation. According to the model, the farmer chooses his cultivation pattern according to the price of the crop and the... 

Lake Urmia in northwest Iran is an important water body at the national and international level and plays a significant role in the natural, social, and economic aspects of life in the region. Unfortunately, as a result of natural and anthropologic factors, the lake has suffered a severe water decline in recent decades and was even on the verge of complete drying. Being aware of the catastrophic consequences of lake Urmia's desiccation, a megaproject called Urmia Lake Restoration Program (ULRP) aiming to revive the lake was launched in 2013. Failure in megaprojects is common and frequent in which a high level of uncertainty is one of the main contributing factors. The purpose of this study... 

The purpose of this study is to introduce a new indicator to estimate the amount of irrigation water in excess of the need and also to determine the optimal irrigation pattern to reduce water loss in agriculture. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the major loss of fresh water takes place in agriculture, and the reduction of water resources is more significant in developing countries that do not have advanced agricultural equipment. One of the challenges in the studies related to reducing the amount of water used in agriculture is a lack of knowledge on the spatial distribution and temporal changes in water loss in a region. Although estimation of... 

The world's freshwater resources are rapidly decreasing due to population growth, industrial and technological progress, successive droughts, climate changes, increased food demand, and poor management of water resources. Using desalination methods is one of the ways to produce the required freshwater. Several methods have been developed for desalination. The most widely used method is reverse osmosis (RO). In this thesis, an electrodialysis (ED) desalination system was designed and modeled using up-to-date and reliable articles. This modeling was done in EES software and after validating that, the effect of considering Donnan's potential was investigated. At the 60 ppt concentration of the... 

Over the past several decades, human activities have resulted in a significant increase in surface and ground water pollution. Human activities have caused significant pollution of surface and groundwater, with pollutants like nitrates, phosphorus, heavy metals, toxins, and chemical fertilizers degrading water quality. In order to control pollution and reduce the concentration of pollutants in water, it is necessary to use appropriate numerical criteria to evaluate and manage the quality of water resources. The water quality index, as a scoring method for investigating the combined effects of independent parameters on overall water quality, is a widely-used metric for measuring the quality... 

In recent decades, the earth is affected by climate change and the seasons has been warmer than the last. Furthermore, the efficiency of agricultural irrigation is low, and it leads to surface water drought and decrease in groundwater level. The Middle East is known for its warm desert climate. Lack of water resources is considered the most limiting factor for sustainable agriculture and water management of irrigation is a crucial issue for agriculture in Middle East. So it’s necessary to devote the cropping pattern considering above changes. The FAO56 Penman-Monteith equation is the standardized ETo equation. A comparison was made between 8 selected methods and FAO56-PM. Thus the method...