JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

---

In this study, the influence of spatial heterogeneity of rainfall on flood hydrograph prediction in three mountainous catchments in south west of Iran was studied. Two interpolation techniques including Thiessen polygons method and Inverse Distance Weighting method were applied to compare the rainfall patterns of surrounding rain-gages in hydrograph simulation with rainfall patterns of nearest rain-gage from the catchment outlet. It was found that the best simulated hydrograph is obtained from rainfall pattern of the nearest rain gage. Moreover, the results did not show any relationship between spatial variation of rainfall and outlet hydrograph. Formation of different local rainfall patterns due to non-stationary rainfall field provoked by irregular topography and their effect on interpolation procedure caused important biases in interpolated rainfall hyetographs obtained by Thiessen and IDW methods. It seems that the observed biases in the response of the catchments are the result of inaccurate representation of spatially averaged rainfall rather than its spatial variability. Hence, in mountainous catchments with irregular topography, the lack of sufficient records caused by poor rain gage arrangement can be highlighted as the dominant source of uncertainty in modeling the spatial variations of rainfall.

---

Water scarcity is a major and structural problem in arid and semi-arid regions across the world that greatly concerns environmental policy-makers. The problem of adjusting the demand exceeding the sustainable supply has been mainly tackled with demand policies, particularly through investment in water saving technology and promotion of irrigation efficiency programs. However, there have been very few evaluations of these programs and many of those that exist raise serious doubt about the programs’ effectiveness in reducing the consumptive use of water, due to the occurrence of the rebound effect. In this study, a sample of 243 farmers in Fars province who have the sprinkler irrigation system installed in their farms was interviewed to collect needed data for investigating the rebound effect using AHP and ordered logit regression model. The results indicated that 74.5 percent of sampled farmers have experienced medium to large rebound effect. It was also found that the amount of dry and fallow land during installation of sprinkler irrigation system have a positive relationship with the probability of occurrence of the rebound effect. Finally, the results of this study can be used to determine the probability of the rebound effect occurrence after installment of the sprinkler system for farms where data is available. For example, in the farms with farm features 24, probability of the rebound effect as a result of water saving measures at the low, medium and high levels are 0.4, 32 and 67.4 percent, respectively. Therefore, we must apply specific water conservation and efficiency practices in such farms based on a combined use of technical, economic, social and political tools to reduce pressure on scarce water supplies.

---

Due to developing abstractions and their impacts on surface runoff, the recorded flow has been changed by human activities in most water gauging stations. Therefore, there is not found natural regime in the catchments. Accordingly, the objective of naturalization is to remove the effect of human activity factors and determine the actual amount of the river flow before the abstraction and the upstream development. Researchers have presented different methods that are mainly based on volume budget. In this way, this research presented the conventional methods as well as investigated their weak points. These new and innovative methods have been applied based on the available data. The methods have been planned based on the net consumption in which, the different types of water demands related to the upstream of each hydrometric station, are estimated for each month of a long-term series. Then, the amount of natural flow is determined by adding them to the observed flow. The accuracy and validation of the results are investigated by comparing the observed and calculated flow. As a case study, this method was utilized and implemented for Tireh and Marbareh sub-basins in Dez as well as Solgan and Beheshtabad sub-basins in the Karun basin. The results showed the role of the human activity factors decreasing the long-term outflow in the Tireh basin a 23.2%, in the Marbareh basin a 28.7%, in the Vanak watershed a 26%, and in the Beheshtabad basin a 9.5%. The results validation indicated the appropriate compatibility of the observational and estimated data for the control points (the stations). In this research, natural flow is obtained by presenting a practical method based on available information in the country. The proposed method has been in the preliminary stages. To verify and comprehend it, it should be used in future research on the interaction of surface and underground water and the use of new technologies such as remote sensing.