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Evaluation of the effects of climate change and pollution discharge scenario on the quality of Dez River using the QUAL2Kw model

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Abstract

Rivers receive a large amount of pollution due to the wide concentration of human activities. This study investigated the effects of climate change on the Dez river water quality and the application of an improvement scenario to improve the Dez river's water quality. The QUAL2kw model was used to simulate water quality parameters. Comparison of error indices for the model in the calibration and validation period with acceptable error values shows that the QUAL2Kw model has acceptable accuracy for simulating temperature and water quality. Furthermore, by applying the point pollutant load reduction scenario, it was found that the quality parameters of the river water can be controlled to a large extent. In addition, after water quality simulation, the effects of climate change in the future (2031–2060) were investigated using the climate scenarios from the sixth assessment report, which presents a new group of emission scenarios called SSP scenarios. Two scenarios, SSP1 and SSP5, were considered in this study. The results of the MPI-ESM1-2-HR climate model showed an increase in annual temperature and a decrease in precipitation in both scenarios for the coming years. The maximum temperature in the SSP1 and SSP5 scenarios increased by + 0.87% and + 1.53%, respectively, and the precipitation showed a decrease of − 0.35% and − 8.34%, respectively. According to the results obtained from water quality prediction under climate change scenarios for the coming period, BOD and COD parameters have exceeded their standard limits for drinking purposes.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

    Mohammad Reza Goodarzi

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Water Resources Management Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

    Amir Reza R. Niknam & Atiyeh Fatehifar

  3. Department of Environmental Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

    S. Hoda Rahmati

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  1. Mohammad Reza Goodarzi
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  3. S. Hoda Rahmati
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  4. Atiyeh Fatehifar
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection were performed by MRG, ARRN, SHR. In addition, analysis and modeling were performed by all authors. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ARRN and AF and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Mohammad Reza Goodarzi.

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Goodarzi, M.R., Niknam, A.R.R., Rahmati, S.H. et al. Evaluation of the effects of climate change and pollution discharge scenario on the quality of Dez River using the QUAL2Kw model. Environ Earth Sci 82, 479 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-023-11175-9

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