JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

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Rice husk, an agricultural waste, is produced about 100 million tons annually in the world and 0.5 million tons in Iran. Due to growing environmental concerns about disposal of these wastes, efforts are required to apply the wastes in industry. In this research, the mechanical properties of concrete incorporating rice husk ash (RHA) in sulfate environments (such as irrigation canals) were investigated and the increase in concrete strength was compared with control samples. In order to burn the husks at a controlled temperature to obtain a highly reactive pozzolanic RHA, a furnace was designed and built. The experiments included 405 samples of cubical (707070-mm) and cylindrical (50.8101.6-mm) concrete samples (105 samples for A, B and C treatments, respectively) which were stored in different ages (7, 28, 60, 180 days) under three different conditions (solutions of magnesium, calcium and sodium sulfates). The portions of RHA as cement replacement were 20 and 30 percents for B and C treatments. The results showed that the samples of concrete containing 20 percent RHA as cement replacement had higher compressive and tensile strengths in sulfate environments at 180 days compared with those of control concretes. The concrete samples containing RHA showed sharper gradients compared to control samples of up to 180 days under sulfate conditions. The best portion of RHA in concrete was determined to be 20 percent by weight.

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Water crisis is an important issue in arid and semi-arid regions like Iran. The situation has been getting more worse over recent years drought. Hence, there is a growing need to utilize low quality water where freshwater is scarce. In this regard, urban wastewater is a promising source but there are concerns about the environmental and health aspects of using such water. The main problem regarding the performance of trickle irrigation system utilizing wastewater effluents is clogging of the emitters. In this study, field trials at pilot scale were carried out to investigate the hydraulic properties of emitters using two types of water including treated wastewater and groundwater. The trickle irrigation system consisted of three 16 mm lateral tubes placed at 300 mm spacing in the main tube and each lateral tube had 16 emitters at 300-mm spacing. The designed discharge of the emitters was 4 L/h. The hydraulic properties of the different commercial emitters (micro flapper, long path, turbo plus and Eurokey) were assessed at different time periods. The results indicated that the Eurokey and long path emitters had the maximum and minimum emission uniformity, respectively, when applying wastewater. using groundwater, the Eurokey and turbo plus emitters had the maximum and minimum emission uniformity, respectively, during the initial phase of the study. However, the Eurokey and long path emitters had the maximum and minimum uniformity values, respectively, at the end of the study. The turbo plus emitters are regulated and, as a result, showed no evidence of sensitivity to pressure variations hence, they can be used on uneven lands and where the trickle irrigation system has long lateral tubes.

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A field study was conducted at the Zabol Agricultural Research Center during the years (2003-2004) to investigate the effect of irrigation with treated municipal wastewater on the yield and quality of wheat and some soil properties. Irrigation treatments were: T₁: Irrigation of wheat with well water during entire period of growing season T₂: Irrigation of wheat with well water until the begging of flowering stage, and irrigation with wastewater in every other turns of irrigation T₃: Irrigation of wheat with well water until the beginning of booting stage, and irrigation with wastewater in every other turns of irrigation T₄: Irrigation of wheat with well water until the begging of tilling stage, and irrigation with wastewater in every other turns of irrigation and T₅: Irrigation of wheat with wastewater during entire period of growing season. A complete randomized block design with four replications was adopted for this experiment. The soil was sandy loam with no limitation for internal drainage. Chemical and physical aspects of soil were measured during the experiment. Grain yield, yield components and chemical composition of wheat grain were also measured. The results showed that yield of wheat and total biomass production were statistically significant in T₃, T₄ and T₅ compared with the control treatment. Plant height, width and length of flag leaf, numbers of fertile tillers, length of panicle, numbers of grains per panicle and weight of 1000 grains were also statistically significant with the control treatment. Percentages of protein were statistically different among various irrigation treatments. No significant changes in accumulation of heavy metals in soil and plant grains were observed. The increase of SAR, ECe, O.C% and total nitrogen in the T₄ and T₅ were statistical significant compared with the control treatment. In summary, for sustainable use of Zabol municipal wastewater, the growth stages of wheat should be irrigated with municipal wastewater and other growth stages should be irrigated with nonsalinty water, so that the maximum yield is obtained and soil salinitisation and sodication is prevented.

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To optimize the use of water for agriculture, knowledge of the seepage of the channel is required. Although there are many empirical equations for estimating canal seepage, the coefficients of these equations are different from Iranian conditions and these equations vary in different areas. In this research, the ability of the SEEP model was studied to estimate the seepage from earth canals in downstream of Zayandehrud dam. Seepage from seven different earth canals (degrees of 3 and 4) was simulated with the model of SEEP and the results were compared to the water balance studies. Also, four empirical equations, Davis-Wilson, Moles worth and Yenni dumia, Moritz and Ingham were used to estimate seepage from these canals. The determination coefficients for these methods and SEEP model were obtained 9.3%, 6.7%, 37.3%, 18.3% and 87.9%, respectively. In contrast with empirical models, SEEP model has a proper ability to simulate seepage from degree 3 canals. The empirical models must be calibrated for local conditions.

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Due to the important role of climatic parameters such as radiation, temperature, precipitation and evaporation rate in water resources management, this study employed time series modeling to forecast climatic parameters. After normality test of the parameters, nonparametric Mann-Kendall test was used in order to do trend analysis of data at P-value<0.05. Relative humidity and evaporation (with significant trend, -0.348 and -0.42 cm, respectively), as well as air temperature, wind speed, and sunshine were selected for time series modeling. Considering the Autocorrelation function (ACF) and Partial Autocorrelation function (PACF) and trend of data, appropriate models were fitted. The significance of the parameters of the selected models was examined by SE and t statistics, and both stationarity and invertibility conditions of Autoregressive (AR) and Moving average (MA) were also tested. Then, model calibration was carried out using Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Anderson- Darling and Rayan-Joiner. The selected ARIMA models are ARIMA(0,0,11)*(0,0,1), ARIMA(2,0,4)*(1,1,0), ARIMA(4,0,0)*(0,1,1), ARIMA (1,0,1)*(0,1,1), ARIMA (1,0,0)*(0,1,1) for relative humidity, evaporation, air temperature, wind speed and sunshine, respectively. The fitted models were then used to forecast the parameters. Finally, trend analysis of forecasted data was done in order to investigate the climate change. This study emphasizes efficiency of time series modeling in water resources studies in order to forecast climatic parameters.

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The effect of sugarcane straw anion exchanger with Micro and Nanostructure scale as the adsorbent for contaminated water treatment was investigated. The effects of operating conditions such as adsorbent loading, initial anion concentration, pH and the presence of competitive ions on the adsorption performances were examined. Equilibrium time and pH and adsorbent dosage were 3h, 6 and 0.5g respectively. The effect of initial concentration on the adsorption of NO3- ions by sugarcane straw anion exchanger was investigated by varying solution concentrations (5-120 mg L-1) using 0.5g adsorbent dose. For micro and nanostructures, adsorption capacity was (0.38-6.94 mg g-1) and (0.44-7.51 mg g-1) respectively. In the column experiment, for micro and nanostructures with (15, 50 and 120 mg L-1) and 0.98 L hr-1 flow rate, adsorption capacity was (8.73, 25.71and 36.25 mg g-1) and (12, 27 and 48.15 mg g-1) respectively. The result of this study indicated that sugarcane straw anion exchanger with micro and nanostructure scale could be used for the removal of nitrate ions in the contaminated water treatment. sugarcane straw anion exchanger -nanostructure adsorbent had higher adsorption than micro adsorbent for nitrate removal.

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Crisis of quality and quantity of water resources is one of the most important problems in arid and semi-arid areas such as Iran. Wastewater treatment and reuse as a potential source of water can not only compensate for the water scarcity but also can prevent the hazardous pollutants from entering the groundwater and surface water resources. There are various methods to improve water quality, among which method of filtration is an effective and efficient method to remove elements. The most important issue for filter system is the selection of adsorbent materials. In this work, the tire chips were used as adsorbent. Column adsorption tests in a pilot system were conducted in two distinct steps using two types of water, including salt water and industrial effluents. Each test was conducted as a factorial experiment with three factors based on a completely randomized design with three replications. Three factors were studied including particle size (2-5 mm and 3-5 cm), filter thickness (10, 30 and 50 cm) and sorbent contact time with solution. The results showed that adsorption rate increased by increasing the thickness of the filter and sorbent contact time with solution. The best performance of reducing the salinity was observed in the treatment with 50 centimeter thickness and 24 contact hours. The salinity of this treatment was reduced by 20.3 percent (in the test with salt water) and 11.2 percent (in the test with industrial effluents). This filter reduced the heavy metals of lead, zinc and manganese up to 99, 72.1 and 41.4 percent, respectively. Also, the performance of millimeter and centimeter particles did not show a significant difference. Generally, the tire chips showed a proper performance to improve the water quality especially for industrial wastewater.

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Heavy metals in water resources are one of the most important environmental problems in most of countries. Up to now, various methods for removing these metals including using low price materials have been used. In this study, two new absorbents (zizyphus spinachristi leaf and its fly ash) were studied for adsorption of cadmium from aqueous solutions using batch experiments. The effect of contact time, pH, and amount of adsorbent on adsorption efficiency was evaluated and the best kinetic and isotherm model was determined. Results showed that optimal absorption of pH was 5 and 6 for zizyphus spinachristi leaf and its fly ash, respectively. The equilibrium time was 45 min for zizyphus spinachristi leaf and 30 min for ash. Adsorption efficiency was increased by increasing the adsorbent dose. By comparing the parameters of isotherm models, it was observed that the cadmium adsorption capacity of fly ash (4.27 mg/gr) was higher than that of zizyphus spinachristi (3.91 mg/gr).

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Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) is one of the most important oilseed crops in the world. Drought stress is one of the environmental factors limiting sesame production. The effects of water deficiency can be reduced by inoculation of plant roots with mycorrhiza fungi. In this experiment, the objective was to determine the effects of different levels of water application (60, 80 and 100% of soil moisture depletion) using surface drip irrigation method and inoculation of plants with mycorrhiza on WUEag of sesame. The experiment was arranged using a factorial design based on randomized complete block design with three replications. The field experiment was conducted at the Agricultural Research Farm of Isfahan University of Technology in 2011. Results showed that the effect of irrigation regime on WUEag of seed yield was not significant. However, the effect of mycorrhiza on WUEag of seed yield was significant. The highest WUEag (0.74 kg/m3) was related to irrigation regime of 80% and mycorrhiza. The effect of irrigation regime and mycorrhiza on WUEag of oil yield were significant. The highest WUEag (0.43 kg/m3) was related to irrigation regime of 100% and mycorrhiza inoculation.

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As increasing of disaster such as drought and pest invasion in recent decades, it is essential to find out practical approaches in optimizing water use and water management for reduce the adverse effects of this disaster in agriculture. In order to study the effects of water stress and pest stress on corn yield, an experiment was conducted in the research farm of Isfahan University of Technology. In sprayed and non sprayed of the field, a factorial design, based on the completely randomized block, was carried out with three treatments of irrigation regimes including intensive stress (50% water requirement), moderate stress (75% water requirement) and no water stress in four stages of corn growth from seed germination until tasseling, from tasseling until milky, from milky until harvest and the whole period of corn growth, in four replications for one year (2005). The results showed that applying water stress on corn reduced seed yield between 6-62% and also decreased other agronomic characters except protein percentage. Water stress in non sprayed condition, reduced significantly more physiological characteristics of corn compared to the sprayed condition. Intensive water stress and pests stresses increasd 3 and 13% of percentage protein, respectively. In sprayed condition applying moderate stress in first stages of corn until the first of third stage is suggested in drought condition.

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In order to investigate the effect of pest and water stresses on different growing stages of cowpea (Vigna sinensis) and pest occurrence, an experiment was conducted in Khazaneh Research station of Isfahan University of Technology. The experiment was carried out in a factorial complete randomized block design, in two different farms, with and without insecticide application. The treatments included severe water stress (50% water requirement), moderate water stress (75% water requirement) in four stages of cowpea growth, the first stage (from seed germination until flower in, second stage (from flowering until pod-filling), third stage (from pod-filling until harvesting) and the whole period of cowpea growth, in three replications. There was a control treatment in each farm with no stress in the whole period of cowpea growth, in three replications. The results showed that water stress had no significant effect on percentage of protein and mineral material. Result also showed that water stress had a significant effect (P≤ 0.01) on population of insects. Water stress significantly (P≤ 0.01) reduced the population of nymphs and adults of Empoasca decipiens Paoli and leaf minor damages, but water stress increased population of Thrips tabaci Lind. Considering the duration of first stage of growth (63 days), it is concluded that this stage had less sensitivity to water stress than the other stages. In regions, where farmers encounter water shortage for cowpea planting, the best performance can be obtained when moderate water stress (75% water requirement) is applied at the first stage of growth.

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Phytoremediation models are important to understand the processes governing phytoremediation and the management of contaminated soils. Little effort has been made for evaluating the potential of the phytoremediation of metals based on the mathematical models. Therefore, the purpose of this study was modeling the phytoremediation of the nickel-contaminated soils. For this purpose, a model was recommended for estimating the rate of the phytoremediation of nickel from the soil by means of relative transpiration reduction and concentration of nickel in the plant functions. To evaluate the model, soil was contaminated with different levels of nickel by nickel nitrate. Then, the pots were filled with contaminated soil and Basil (ocimum tenuiflirum L.) seeds were planted. To avoid the dry tension, the pots were weighed and irrigated to the point of field capacity (FC) at short time intervals (48 hours). The plants were harvested in four times. At each harvesting stage, the relative transpiration values and nickel concentration in the soil and plant samples were measured. The performance of the model was evaluated by statistical methods such as Maximum Error, Root Mean Square Error, Coefficient of Determination, Efficiency of Model and Coefficient of Residual Mass. Results demonstrated that in the case of nickel contamination in soil, changes in the relative transpiration of Basil can be measured by the two proposed models and the linear model (R2=0.94) has a better performance compared to the nonlinear one (R2=0.84). Also the model obtained from the combination of linear function and nickel's concentration in soil has a relatively good (R=0.7) fit with the measured values of the remediation rate of nickel in soil.

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Nowadays, due to the high potential of advanced simulation models for groundwater, these models are comprehensively applied in the management and exploitation of groundwater resources. The aim of this study was to investigate and simulate the groundwater resources in Kouhpayeh-Segzi watershed and in particular estimate the hydrodynamic coefficients of unconfined aquifer. After preparation of input layers, efficient parameters in modeling, boundary conditions and aquifer gridding were determined. Then, based on the available data, the model was run and calibrated in a steady state for the water year 2002 and in a transient state for water years between 2002 and 2004. The simulation outputs were confidently verified for the water year 2005. The results indicated that the hydraulic conductivities and storage coefficients were ranged on sub-basin from 15.26 to 19.87 m/day and 0.0107 to 0.0186, respectively. From aquifer's hydrograph for a period from 1995 to 2012, water level dropped about 25 cm. This may be due to two irrigation networks (green area). This leads to rising water level. By ignoring these recharge areas, water level declined up to 80 cm per year. With sensitivity analysis in transient state to evaluate the efficacy of each parameter, the accuracy of the results of calibration model was confirmed. In addition, the hydraulic head values computed by MODFLOW were in good agreement with those that were collected from all piezometers.

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Lack of knowledge on soil geotechnical properties can cause many problems in the construction and maintenance of irrigation and drainage networks. In general, all of unconventional soils such as gypsiferous soils can cause some problems to irrigation canals. Some studies have been conducted on a variety of problematic soils, but still there is a need for more research activities and field studies. This research was conducted to study the impact of adding perlite and pumice (5%, 10% and 15%) and micro silica (1%, 5% and 10%) on some mechanical properties of soil including shear stress, bearing capacity and Atterberg limits. Statistical analysis was done to compare their averages (P<0.01). Results showed that micro silica had the most effect on shear, bearing and condensation parameters and Atterberg limits of gypsiferous soil, and it improved these parameters of soil. Pumice improved shear, bearing and condensation properties of gypsiferous soil. Perlite reduced the shear, bearing and condensation properties of gypsiferous soil.

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To improve the engineering properties of fine-grained soils, the use of various additives has always been considered important. In this study, the effect of hydrated lime on compressive strength of clay soils was studied in both optimum moisture and saturated modes. For this purpose, by adding varying amounts of hydrated lime (0, 1, 3and 5%) to the clay, several samples were prepared and tested by the standard proctor and Harvard miniature compaction apparatus. Then the samples were tested for unconfined compressive strength in optimum moisture and saturated modes after different curing days (7, 14, 28 and 90 days). The results showed that by increasing the amount of hydrated lime, the maximum dry unit weight was reduced and the optimum moisture was increased. Increasing the hydrated lime also increased the compressive strength of the soil in both dry and saturated modes and this resistance increase was significantly influenced by cured days and the amounts of hydrated lime. The results showed that the rate of 5% hydrated lime was the maximum compressive strength, but with regard to softening factor, the amount of 3% hydrated lime was determined as the optimum value.

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Due to the time and space changes of hydrological events in the arid and semi-arid regions, recharge measurement in these areas is very difficult. Hence, groundwater recharge is a complicated phenomenon for which there is not a fixed method to determine. The aim of this research was to develop a method for estimation of groundwater recharge based on a hybrid method. In this study, a hybrid method for calculating recharge was presented by combining empirical methods with a mathematical model, MODFLOW, and AHP analysis. The results showed that the most important parameters affecting groundwater recharge are soil properties, unsaturated thickness, land cover, land slope, irrigation and precipitation, from which the soil properties and precipitation are most important. The results showed that the overall impact of small changes in precipitation and temperature significantly affect the groundwater recharge, and heavy soils are much more sensitive to these changes than light soils. By changing 10% precipitation, the recharge rate is changed between 16% and 77% and by changing 1ºC temperature, the recharge rate is changed between 6% and 42%. Also, results showed that precipitation and evapotranspiration changes in four months including December, January, February and March had significant effects on annual recharge rate. Using the results of this research, the vulnerable areas of the plain, appropriate places and time for artificial recharge could be identified. Overall, the results of this study can be useful in various aspects of groundwater management.

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Water scarcity forced farmers to use wastewater as water source, without considering its effects on environment and resultant contamination of soils and plants especially with heavy metals. The objectives of this study are to evaluate the application effects of zeolite as soil amendments on the uptake of Cd by spinach (Spinach Oleares L.) irrigated with wastewater (containing 10 ppm Cd). Different levels amounts of zeoilte (0, 1% and 5% w/w) were added to the soil and the experiment was conducted as a completely randomized design in a green house with 3 replications. The results indicated that, the addition of zeolite 1% (w/w) in soil treated with wastewater reduced cadmium concentration in plant, and consequently the percentage of extractable Cd using DTPA was decreased. However, application of zeolite 5% (w/w) increased the soil salinity, and as a result increased Cd concentration in the plant but this increase was not statistically significant, comparing with control. Spinach biomass did not differ significantly under irrigation with wastewater, but the Cd available in wastewater caused a decrease in Spinach biomass yield.

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In this research, a comprehensive simulation model for water cycle and the nitrogen dynamics modeling including all the important processes involved in nitrogen transformations such as fertilizer dissolution, nitrification, denitrification, ammonium volatilization, mineralization, immobilization as well as all the important nitrogen transportation processes including nitrogen uptake by the plant, soil particles adsorption, upward flux, surface runoff losses and drain losses, was used for fertilizer management modeling in a sugarcane farmland in Imam Khomeini Agro-Industrial Company using a system dynamics approach. For evaluating the model the data collected from Imam Agro-Industrial Company equipped with a tile drainage system with shallow ground water and located in Khuzestan province, Iran, were used. The statistical analysis of the observed and simulated data showed that the RMSE for determining the accuracy of simulation of the nitrate and ammonium concentration in drainage water is 1.73 mg/L and 0.48 mg/L, respectively. The results indicated that there is good agreement between the observed and the simulated data. Nine scenarios of fertilization at different levels of urea fertilizer were modeled including one scenario of 400 kg/ha, two spilit scenarios of 350 kg/ha, two spilit scenarios of 325 kg/ha, two spilit scenarios of 300 kg/ha, one scenario of 280 kg/ha and one scenario of 210 kg/ha. Results of the modeling showed that the scenario of 210 kg/ha has the highest nitrogen use efficiency (52.3%) and the lowest nitrogen losses consisted of denitrification, ammonium volatilization and drainage losses (17.82, 7.16 and 92.59 kg/ha, respectively). The results revealed that increasing the consumption of urea fertilizer greater than 210 kg/ha increased the overall nitrogen losses and reduced the nitrogen use efficiency. Meanwhile, this model can be used for managing the fertilizer and controlling the nitrate and ammonium concentrations in the drainage water to prevent the environmental pollution. Also, the system dynamics approach was found as an effective technique for simulating the complex water-soil-plant-drainage system.

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