Abstract
Iran is a developing country with arid and semiarid regions. Poor management of water resources combined with the effects of climate change is leading to the drying of several rivers and wetlands. Several planned water development projects, primarily for agricultural expansion, will be implemented in the coming years which could worsen impacts on vulnerable aquatic ecosystems. Proper water resources management is essential to meet present and future residential, environmental, industrial, and agricultural demands in semiarid regions. This paper presents projections of how the availability of water resources will change in the Karkheh river basin of Iran for the period 2010–2059 employing sustainability criteria in the form of time-based reliability, volumetric reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability. This paper’s results show that consideration of environmental receptors as a stakeholder of water use places limitations on agricultural development within the Karkheh river basin.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abbaspour KC, Faramarzi M, Seyed Ghasemi S, Hong Y (2009) Assessing the impact of climate change on water resources in Iran. J Water Resour Res. doi:10.1029/2008WR007615
Adgolign TB, Srinivasa Rao GVR, Abbula Y (2016) WEAP modeling of surface water resources allocation in Didessa sub-basin, west Ethiopia. J Sustain Water Resour Manag 2(1):55–70. doi:10.1007/s40899-015-0041-4
Ahmad S, Simonovic SP (2000) System dynamics modeling of reservoir operating for flood management. J Comput Civ Eng 14(3):190–198
Ashofteh P-S, Bozorg-haddad O, Akbari-Alashti H, Mariño MA (2015) Determination of irrigation allocation policy under climate change by genetic programming. J Irrig Drain Eng 141(4):04014059
Ashraf Vaghefi S, Mousavi SJ, Abbaspour KC, Srinivasan R, Yang H (2013a) Analyses of the impact of climate change on water resources components, drought and wheat yield in semiarid regions: Karkheh River Basin in Iran. J Hydrol Process 28(4):2018–2032. doi:10.1002/hyp.9747
Ashraf Vaghefi S, Mousavi SJ, Abbaspour KC, Srinivasan R, Arnold JR (2013b) Integration of hydrologic and water allocation models in basin-scale water resources management considering crop pattern and climate change: Karkheh river basin in Iran. J Reg Environ Change 15(3):475–484. doi:10.1007/s10113-013-0573-9
Bender MJ, Simonivic SP (1997) Consensus as the measure of sustainability. Hydrol Sci J 42(4):493–500
Bolouri-Yazdeli Y, Bozorg-Haddad O, Fallah-Mehdipour E, Mariño MA (2014) Evaluation of real-time operation rules in reservoir systems operation. Water Resour Manag 28(3):715–729. doi:10.1007/s11269-013-0510-1
Bozorg-Haddad O, Farhangi M, Fallah-Mehdipour E, Mariño MA (2014) Effects of inflow uncertainty on the performance of multireservoir systems. J Irrig Drain Eng 140(11):04014035. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)IR.1943-4774.0000756
Chenoweth J, Hadjinicolaou P, Bruggeman A, Levieveld J, Levin Z, Lange MA, Xoplaki E, Hadjikakou M (2011) Impacts of climate change on the water resources of the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East region: modeled 21st century and implication. J Water Resour Res. doi:10.1029/2010WR010269
Davtalab R, Madani K, Massah A, Farajzadeh M (2014) Evaluating the effects of climate change on water reliability in Iran’s Karkheh river basin. In: Proceeding of world environmental and water resources congress, 1–5 June, Portland
Fanai N, Burn D (1997) Reversibility as a sustainability criterion for project selection. Int J Sustain Dev World Ecol 4(4):259–273
Fujino J, Nair R, Kainuma M, Masui T, Matsuoka Y (2006) Multi-gas mitigation analysis on stabilization scenarios using aim global model. Energy J 27(Special Issue: Multi-Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Climate Policy):343–353
Gergel DR, Nijssen B, Abatzoglou JT, Lettenmaier DP, Stumbaugh MR (2017) Effects of climate change on snowpack and fire potential in the western USA. J Clim Change 141(2):287–299. doi:10.1007/s10584-017-1899-y
Harma KJ, Johnson MK, Cohen SJ (2012) Future water supply and demand in Okanagan basin, British Columbia: a scenario-based analysis of multiple, interacting stressors. J Water Resour Manag 26(3):667–689. doi:10.1007/s11269-011-9938-3
Hong L, Chong-Yu X, Beldring S, Tallaksen L, Jain SK (2016) Water resources under climate change in Himalayan basins. J Water Resour Manag 30(2):843–859. doi:10.1007/s11269-015-1194-5
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014) Climate change 2014: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability-regional aspects. Cambridge University Press, New York
Kamali B, Houshmand Kouchi D, Yang H, Abbaspour K (2017) Multilevel drought hazard assessment under climate change scenarios in semi-arid regions-a case study of the Karkheh river basin in iran. Water 9(4):241. doi:10.3390/w9040241
Lévite H, Sally H, Cour J (2003) Testing water demand scenarios in a water-stressed basin in South Africa: application of the WEAP model. J Phys Chem Earth 28:779–786
Loucks DP (1997) Quantifying trends in system sustainability. Hydrol Sci J 42(4):513–530
Loucks DP, Dorfman P (1975) An evolution of some linear decision rules for reservoir planning and operation. J Water Resour Res 11(6):777–782. doi:10.1029/WR011i006p00777
Marjanizadeh S (2008) Developing a “best case scenario” for Karkheh river basin management (2025 horizon); a case study from Karkheh river basin, Iran. PhD dissertation, Department of Water, Atmosphere and Environment, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna
Masih I, Ahmad M, Uhlenbrook S, Turral H, Karimi P (2009) Analysing streamflow variability and water allocation for sustainable management of water resources in the semi-arid Karkheh river basin, Iran. J Phys Chem Earth 34(4):329–340
Ministry Energy of Iran (2012) Guideline for finding aquatic ecosystems environmental water requirement. Office of Deputy for Strategic Supervision, Tehran
Moeini R, Afshar A, Afshar MH (2011) Fuzzy rule-based model for hydropower reservoirs operation. J Electr Power Energy Syst 33(2):171–178
Mousavi SJ, Ponnambalam K, Karray F (2005) Reservoir operation using a dynamic programming fuzzy rule-based approach. Water Resour Manag 19(5):655–672. doi:10.1007/s11269-005-3275-3
Ngoc D, Geurbesville P, Minh T, Raghavan S, Shie Y (2016) A deterministic hydrological approach to estimate climate change impact on rivet flow: Vu Gia-Thu Bon catchment, Vietnam. J Hydro Environ Res 11:59–74
Raskin P, Hansen E, Zhu Z, Stavisky D (2009) Simulation of water supply and demand in Aral sea Region. J Water Int 17(2):55–67
Riahi K, Rao S, Krey V, Cho C, Chirkov V, Fischer G, Kindermann G, Nakicenovic N, Rafaj P (2011) RCP 8.5—a scenario of comparatively high greenhouse gas emissions. J Clim Change 109(1–2):33. doi:10.1007/s10584-011-0149-y
Sarzaeim P, Bozorg-Haddad O, Fallah-Mehdipor E, Loáiciga HA (2017) Environmental water demand assessment under climate-change conditions. Environ Monit Assess. doi:10.1007/s10661-017-6067-3
Simonovic SP (2009) Managing water resources: methods and tools for a system approach. UNESCO Publishing, London
Thomson AM, Calvin KV, Smith SJ, Page Kyle G, Volke A, Patel P, Delgado-Arias S, Bond-Lamberty B, Wise MA, Clarke LE, Edmonds JA (2011) RCP 4.5: a pathway for stabilization of radiative forcing by 2100. J Clim Change 109(1–2):77. doi:10.1007/s10584-011-0151-4
Van-Vuuren D, Edmonds J, Kainuma M, Riahi K, Thomson A, Hibbard K, Hurtt G, Kram T, Krey V, Lamarque JF, Masui T, Meinhausen M, Nakicenovic N, Smith S, Rose SK (2011) The representative concentration pathways: an overview. J Clim Change 109(1–2):5. doi:10.1007/s10584-011-0148-z
Wayne GP (2013) The beginner’s guide to representative concentration pathways. Skept Sci 25:1–24
Wilby RL, Dawson CW, Barrow EM (2002) SDSM—a decision support tool for the assessment of regional climate change impacts. Environ Model Softw 17(2):145–157
Zahmatkesh Z, Karamouz M, Goharian E, Burian SJ (2015) Analysis of the effects of climate change on urban storm water runoff using statistically downscaled precipitation data and a change factor approach. J Hydrol Eng 20(7):05014022
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sarzaeim, P., Bozorg-Haddad, O., Fallah-Mehdipour, E. et al. Climate change outlook for water resources management in a semiarid river basin: the effect of the environmental water demand. Environ Earth Sci 76, 498 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-017-6834-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-017-6834-z