Water Resources Planning and Management in Lake Urmia Basin Using the Water Accounting Approach

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Faculty of Civil, Water and Environmental Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Department of Civil, Water and Environmental Engineering, Technical and Engineering Campus of Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

3 Water Research Institute, Ministry of Energy, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Various approaches have been used for water resource management, one of which is the WA+ water accounting system based on the balance parameters of water resources and the distinction between green and blue water components. This study aims to introduce and use the WA+ framework as an easy and standard method for water management in the Mahabad basin located in the south of Lake Urmia. The evaluation results of the user profiles of this water accounting system showed that the Available Water Fraction indicator in the first user profile was 0.59, the Beneficial Transpiration Fraction indicator in the second user profile was 0.75, the Water Productivity for Irrigated Crops indicator in the third user profile was 0.87, and the Return Flow Fraction indicator in the fourth user profile was 0.51. Based on the results obtained, remedial solutions were defined for the optimal use of water resources and prioritized based on three technical, environmental, and socio-economic criteria, which were weighted using the MEREC model and decided by the COPRAS decision-making method. Therefore, the results showed that the combined method of a 2% increase in agricultural efficiency and a 10% reduction in the cultivation area of crops except wheat is the best remedial solution, with the three mentioned criteria calculated as 0.680, 0.161, and 0.650, respectively.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Iranian Journal of Soil and Water Research

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 14 May 2024

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics