JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

Today, supplying water to meet the sustainable development goals is one of the most important concerns and challenges in most countries. Therefore, identification of the areas with groundwater potential is an important tool for conservation, management and exploitation of water resources. The purpose of this research was to prepare the potential groundwater map in Nahavand, Hamedan Province, using the weight of evidence model and combining it with logistic regression. For this purpose,  the information layers of slope angle, slope aspect, slope length, altitude, plan curvature, profile curvature, TWI, SPI, distance from fault, fault density, distance from river, drainage density, lithology and land use were identified as the  factors affecting groundwater potential and digitized in the ArcGIS software. After designing the groundwater potential map with these three methods, ROCs were used to evaluate the results. Of 273 springs identified in this study, 191 (70%) were used to prepare the groundwater potential map and 82 springs (30%) were used to evaluate the model. The area under curve (AUC) obtained from the ROC curve showed an accuracy of 80.4% for the weight of evidence model and 82.5% for the weight of the evidence- regression combined model

The present study was conducted to evaluate the ecological risk indices of Zn, Cu, Cd, Pb and Ni in the soils from Urmia region (Ghahramanloo village), as irrigated with treated wastewater. Accordingly, six different soil sites (five soil sites under wastewater irrigation and one soil site under well water irrigation as the control) were selected and sampled (AP horizon, 0-30 cm depth). Soil samples were air dried, passed through a 2-mm sieve, and analysed to determine the chemical properties and the studied heavy metals. The results showed that irrigation with the treated wastewater significantly increased the total elements in the order of Cd (228%)> Zn (118.5%)> Ni (81.5%)> Pb (54.2%)> Cu (23.5%). Nevertheless, with the exception of cadmium, other elements were within the admissible range based on the national and international standards. Ecological risk index (min = 125, max = 152, mean = 140) showed a considerable risk in all studied soils and Cd could be regarded as the major metal affecting the index yield.

Today, the use of refined urban wastewater for agriculture is growing considerably. One of the methods for the natural treatment of wastewater is the constructed wetland. In this study, the effects of three and six days retention time on the vertical, horizontal and hybrid constructed wetland (first vertical and then horizontal) with perlite beds and Cyperus plants on the urban wastewater were investigated. In this study, horizontal wetlands were designed with 0.75 m width, 0.5 m depth and 6 m length; the vertical wetlands were designed as cylinders with a diameter of 0.7 m and the height of 1.2 m. On average, for the three days retention time, in the wetland with the vertical flow, 5the horizontal flow and the hybrid wetland, nitrate was 31.0, 36.7 and 56.3 percent, ammonium was 7.6, 32.7 and 37.8 percent, and the fecal coliform was decreased by 53.3, 93.4 and 96.9 percent, respectively. Also, during the six days retention time in the wetland with the vertical flow, the horizontal flow and the hybrid wetland, nitrate was 45.7, 58.5 and 77.5 percent, ammonium was 16.8, 75.2 and 79.4 percent, and fecal coliform was decreased by 58.0, 97.5 and 99.0 percent, respectively. Overall, the results showed that constructed wetland with perlite beds and Cyperus plants had a good function in removing pollutants, especially fecal coliform.

The current study was conducted to compute SPI and SPET drought indices due to their multi-scale concept and their ability to analyze different time-scales for selected meteorological stations in Karoon Basin. Regionalization of SPI and SPEI Drought indices based on clustering analysis was another aim of this study for hydrological homogenizing. Accordingly, to run test through data and determine similar statistical periods, 18 stations were selected. SPI and SPEI values were plotted in the sequence periods graphs and their relationships were analyzed using the correlation coefficient. The results were compared by Pearson correlation coefficient at the significance level of 0.01. The results showed that correlation coefficients (0.5-0.95) were positive and meaningful for all stations and the correlation coefficient between the two indices were increased by enhancing the time-scales. Also, time-scales enhancement decreased the frequency of dry and wet periods and increased their duration. Through regionalization of basin stations based on clustering analysis, the stations were classified into 7 classes. The results of SPEI regionalization showed that the frequency percentage of the normal class was more than those of dry and wet classes.

Integrated simulation of water resources systems is an efficient tool to evaluate and adopt various options in macro-policies and decision-making procedures that are in line with the sustainable development of drainage basins. One of the drainage basin management policies is to enhance the efficiency of agricultural land use. Considering the complicated function of the drainage basin elements and their interaction with each other due to water discharge fluctuations caused by various factors such as climate change, the evaluation of these policies is of great importance. Given the low irrigation efficiency in Iran, the present study was aimed to evaluate the effects of management scenarios (including long-term irrigation efficiency increased up to 20% with 5% intervals) and discharge fluctuation scenarios (including 5% and 10% decrease in the average basin inflows) on the reliability and vulnerability of water resources system in Dez Basin. The integrated scenarios were simulated in the WEAP model. The scenarios were separately simulated for the Dez irrigation network and all farmlands across Dez Basin. According to the results, reliability was decreased by 5.69 and 18.89% in the scenarios with 5% and 10% decrease in the average basin inflows, respectively. Furthermore, the irrigation efficiency of 20% in the scenario considering the current inflows ended up with the reliability of 73.58%. Moreover, in the scenario involving 5% decrease in the average basin inflows, the reliability was increased by 3.8% with an increasing efficiency of 20%; with 3.8% and 5.7%, there was an increasing efficiency of 15% and 20% in all farmlands, respectively. In the scenario consisting of 10% decrease in average basin inflows, the reliability was increased by 1.91%, 3.8%, and 5.7% with the increasing efficiency of 10%, 15%, and 20%; on the other hand, with, these were 3.8% 9.46%, and 13.2% with increasing efficiency in all farmlands, respectively. In all scenarios, the vulnerability was found to fluctuate between 25% and 31%, which was systematically analyzed.

Evaluation of groundwater hydro chemical characteristics is necessary for planning and water resources management in terms of quality. In the present study, a self-organizing map (SOM) clustering technique was used to recognize the homogeneous clusters of hydro chemical parameters in water resources (including well, spring and qanat) of Kerman province; then, the quality classification of groundwater samples was investigated for drinking and irrigation uses by employing SOM clusters. Patterns of water quality parameters were visualized by SOM planes, and similar patterns were observed for those parameters that were correlated with each other, indicating a same source. Based on the SOM results, the 729-groundwater samples in the study area were grouped into 4 clusters, such that the clusters 1, 2, 3, and 4 contained 73%, 6.2%, 6.7%, and 14.1% of groundwater samples, respectively. The increase order of electrical conductivity parameter in the clusters was as 1, 4, 3 and 2. The results of water quality index based on the entropy weighting (EWQI) showed that all of the samples with excellent and good quality (36.3% of samples) for drinking belonged to the cluster 1. According to the Wilcox diagram, 435-groundwater samples (81.7%) in the cluster 1 had the permitted quality for irrigation activities, and the other 285-groundwater samples were placed in all four clusters, indicating the unsuitable quality for irrigation. The Piper diagram also revealed that the dominant hydro chemical faces of cluster 1 were Na-Cl, Mixed Ca-Mg-Cl and Ca-HCO₃, whereas the clusters 2, 3, and 4 had the Na-Cl face. This study, therefore, shows that the SOM approach can be successfully used to classify and characterize the groundwater in terms of hydrochemistry and water quality for drinking and irrigation purposes on a provincial scale.

Selection of drainage equation with acceptable accuracy has always been a challenge for designers to design subsurface drainage systems. In this research, seven steady state drainage equations were used for predicting daily and cumulative drainage rate on a farmland of sugarcane in Imam agro-industrial Company. These drainage equation included Hooghoudt, Ernst, Kirkham and Dagan that have been developed in the past and Mishra and Singh, Henine and Yousfi et al that recently developed. The statistical indices consist of P-value, RMSE, R2 and Percentage Error of estimating cumulative drainage rate were calculated for Hooghoudt equation 0.9501, 1.49 (mm/day), 0.80 and -0.19%, respectively. For Ernst equation 0.0001, 2.46 (mm/day), 0.34 and 16.98%, respectively. The result of performance of drainage equations revealed that Hooghoudt and Ernst equation were as the equations with the highest and lowest accuracy in predicting drainage rate, respectively. Also from the newly developed equations, the Yousfi et al equation was found with relatively well accuracy to predict the drainage rate. This equation was placed in second rank after Hooghoudt equation and other equations showed poor performance. Thus, with selection of the appropriate drainage rate, the Hooghoudt equation is suggested for designing of drain spacing in medium to heavy textured soils such as sugarcane agro-industrial.

A well healthy environment can quietly affect the life quality and human community. In recent decades the need for and utilizing fossil had increased and thus the environmental pollutions including for soil has also increased. Petroleum contaminated soils are not suitable for agricultural, residential and social usage and cause economical, ecological and agricultural damage. To cope with this challenge, the use of additives such as carbon nanotubes has expanded to soil, but the use of these elements has raised concerns about their risk to biological processes and systems, such as effects on physiology and plant growth, and there have not been much studies on this issue. In order to investigate the interaction of soil petroleum pollution and carbon nanotubes on some plant characteristics such as wet mass, dry matter and plant length, seed and maize seedling were separately treated with 0, 10, 20 and 40 mg/l carbon nanotubes at the beginning. In pots containing soil with three levels of petroleum pollution, 2.43, 2.76 and 4.16% were cultivated with 3 replications. A completely randomized design was used in the form of factorial experiments. Wet mass, dry matter and length of shoot and root of plants were determined. The results showed that petroleum pollution had a negative effect on the growth characteristics. It was also observed that application of carbon nanotubes to maize (whether seed or seedling) depending on the concentration of these materials, could have different effects on plant growth parameters.

Nowadays, environmental pollutions especially water pollution is increasingly developing. One of the problems of entering the pollutants to rivers is reduction in the concentration of river dissolved oxygen. In order to manage the water resources, amount of dissolved oxygen should be predicted. This study presents a novel equation for simulating the concentration of river dissolved oxygen by adding the oxygen production and consumption in the river factors to equation for transmission-diffusion of minerals in the soil. The resultant equation was separated in finite differential method and by using implicit pattern. Calculations were done by encodings in MATLAB software. In order to calibrate and confirm the dissolved oxygen model, data derived from Zayanderood River around Zob-Ahan factory of Isfahan and Mobarakeh Steel Complex was used. By using some data, coefficients of model were determined. Analyzing the sensitivity of model coefficients showed that aeration constant (K_r) had the most effect on predicting the model. Since depends on hydraulic parameters of river, sensitivity of depth and pace of river was studied and finally depth of river was introduced as the most sensitive variable.

In this study, the effect of some soil parameters on the life forms and total aboveground net primary production (ANPP) in meadow rangelands in Fandoghlou region of Namin county in Ardabil Province were investigated. ANPP in 180 plots of 12 by harvesting and weighting method were measured. Eighteen soil samples were collected along transects. Some physical and chemical attributes of the soil were measured by standard methods. The relationship between these parameters and ANPP was performed using multivariate regression (enter) method. To determine the effects of important soil parameters on ANPP variation, principal component analysis (PCA) was used. The results of regression analysis showed that electrical conductivity (EC), magnesium (Mg), spreadable clay (WDC), volumetric moisture content (VM), organic carbon (OC), soluble potassium (KS), exchangeable potassium (Kexch), sodium (Na) and phosphorus (P) were the effective parameters on the life forms and total ANPP (p<0.01). The accuracy of obtained equations for grasses, forbs and total ANPP were calculated 79, 76 and 70%, respectively. Moreover, results of PCA showed that soil parameters justify 84.52 percent of total ANPP variation and in comparison, with regression results with 28% it provides better results.

Creation and conservation of urban parks is challenging in arid environments where daily thermal extremes, water scarcity, air pollution and shortage of natural green spaces are more conspicuous. Water scarcity in the arid regions of Iran is major challenge for water managers. Accurate estimation of urban landscape evapotranspiration is therefore critically important for cities located in naturally dry environments, to appropriately manage irrigation practices. This study investigated two factor-based approaches, Water Use Classifications of Landscape Species (WUCOLS) and Landscape Irrigation Management Program (LIMP), to measure the water demand in a botanic garden. The irrigation water volume applied was compared with the gross water demand for the period from 2011 to 2013. On average, WUCOLS estimated an average annual irrigation need of 1164 mm which is 15% less than the applied value of 1366 mm while the LIMP estimate of 1239 mm was 9% less than the applied value. Comparison of estimated and applied irrigation showed that a water saving of 9% can be made by the LIMP method. The outcomes of this research stressed the need to modify the irrigation requirements based on effective rainfall throughout the year, rather relying on long-term average data.

Seepage losses and poor operational activities are the two main source of water losses throughout the agricultural water conveyance and distribution systems in irrigation districts. This study aims to investigate the performances of two strategies of “canal lining” and employing the “Canal Automation” in order to reduce the losses mentioned above. The investigation was carried out on a couple of main canal reaches of Moghan Irrigation Districts. Two numerical models were simulated by Seep/w software to compare the seepage rate between the canal with and without concrete lining. The results reveal that the ability of concrete lining to reduce seepage losses along the canal is about 10%. Performance assessment of the “Canal Automation” strategy to minimize operational losses within the main canal was carried out employing Model Predictive Control (MPC). The results of the latter strategy indicate that employing the MPC not only reduces the operational losses along the canal by 15% but also improves the operation of the main canal so that the minimum efficiency and adequacy performance indicator was obtained 100% and 83% respectively. Therefore; due to Executive considerations and financial constraints in the same cases, the potential of each of the two strategies can be considered to reduce the conveyance and distribution losses and ultimately choose the most suitable option.

Use of the curve gradient of the Soil Water Retention Curves (SWRC) in the inflection point (S Index) is one of the main indices for assessing the soil quality for management objectives in agricultural and garden lands. In this study Anneling Simulated – artificial neural network (SA-ANN) hybrid algorithm was used to identify the most effective soil features on estimation of S Index in Jiroft plain. For this purpose, 350 disturbed and undisturbed soils samples were collected from the agricultural and garden lands and then some physical and chemical soil properties including Sand, Silt, Clay percent, Electrical Conductivity at saturation, Bulk Density, total porosity, Organic Mater, and percent of equal Calcium Carbonate were measured. Moreover, the soil moisture amount was determined within the suctions of 0, 10, 30, 50, 100, 300, 500, 1000, 1500 KP using pressure plate. Then, the determinant features influencing the modeling of S Index were derived using SA-ANN hybrid algorithm. The results indicated that modeling precision increased by reducing the input variables. According to the sensitivity analysis, the Bulk Density had the highest sensitivity coefficient (sensitivity coefficient=0.5) and was identified as the determinant feature for modeling the S Index. So, since increasing the number of features does not necessarily increase the accuracy of modeling, reducing input features is due to cost reduction and time-consuming research.

Droughts are natural events and could lead to declining surface water quality of regional basin. Understanding the complex impacts of drought may help authorities to monitor changes in different regional basin and to make appropriate decision on development of a river basin management plan. In this study 20 years annual precipitation time series from 1994-2013 from 7 synoptic weather stations located in the Halil-Rood basin were analysed using both Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) and Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI) and then dry (-1.35 to -1.75) and wet years (1/7 to 2.45) were determined by model simulation studies. Several climate based drought indices and remotely sensed based drought indices were used for monitoring and evaluating of drought. The impact of drought on the water quality parameters in the study area was evaluated. Results showed that there was significant relationship between most of the examined water quality parameters (Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, HCO^3-, SO4²⁺, Na⁺, total dissolved solids TDS, SAR) and drought, however there was no significant relationship between water pH and drought. The study indicated that focus on the drought indices might be helpful as a tool in improving surface water resources management under drought condition and may promote sustainable water resources utilization and management in the study area. Also, dividing the Halil-Rood basin into several homogeneous regions is recommended for future studies to prepare a better ground for studying the effect of drought on the quality of water at a regional scale.

In this study, the discharge coefficient of the circular side orifices was predicted using a new hybrid method. Combinations made in this study were divided into two sections: 1) the combination of two algorithms including Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) and providing the PSOGA algorithm 2) using the PSOGA algorithm in order to optimize the Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference Systems (ANFIS) network and providing the ANFIS-PSOGA method. Next, by identifying the parameters affecting on the discharge coefficient of the circular side orifices, 11 different combinations were provided. Then, the sensitivity analysis conducted by ANFIS showed that the Froude number and the ratio of the flow depth to the orifice diameter (Ym/D) were identified as the most effective parameters in modeling the discharge coefficient. Also, the best combination including the Froude number (Fr), the ratio of the main channel width to the side orifice diameter (B/D), the ratio of the orifice crest height to its diameter (W/D) and the ratio of the flow depth to the orifice diameter (Ym/D) for estimating the discharge coefficient was introduced. For this model, the values of Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and correlation coefficient (R) were obtained 0.021, 0.020 and 0.871, respectively. Additionally, the performance of the ANFIS-PSOGA method was compared with the ANFIS-PSO and ANFIS methods. The results showed that the ANFIS-PSOGA method for predicting the discharge coefficient was the superior model

Rivers are one of the most important source of water supply for drinking and farming purposes. Zard River is one of the surface water resources of Khuzestan province. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the quality of the river water and to observe the trend of changes in the water quality of this river in the Mashin station during the period of 1997-2015 by using the Man-Kendal, Spearman, variance analysis statistical methods and the least significant difference (LSD) and cluster analysis. LSD test shows SAR, Na, Cl, pH parameters up to 2010 (before Jare dam construction) were significant at 95% confidence level compared to 2015 (year of control). No changes were made after dam construction. According to Mann-Kendal non-parametric test, pH, Ca and SO₄ have a significant upward trend to the 0.037, 0.393 and 0.376 respectively, the variables Cl, SAR, Na and temperature have a significant decreasing trend to the -0.387, -0.417, -0.386 and -0.1 respectively. Also Spearman test shows that the dam improved the quality of river water regarding to salinity. Variance analysis show that pH, SAR, Na, Cl, Ca and SO₄ have significant difference. Cluster analysis classified the qualitative data before the construction of the dam in three clusters and after the construction of the dam were divided into two clusters where TDS variable was less distant than other variables. As a result, the quality of the irrigation water is changed downward and the TDS is more similar to the other variables compared.

In recent decades, land use changes have been one of the most important environmental issues worldwide. This study was carried out to investigate and analyse land use changes in dust sources of south and south-east Ahwaz and surrounding lands using remote sensing technique. Firstly, based on the standard precipitation index (SPI), the years 1986, 2002 and 2016 were selected as years with near normal situation. In the next step, land use maps of the study area were extracted using a Landsat satellite images and supervised classification methods. MNDWI index was used to increase the accuracy of image classification. In order to evaluate the efficiency of each method, the overall accuracy and kappa coefficient were used. Finally, to investigate land use change a post-classification comparison method was employed. According to research findings, in the first period (1986-2002), the area of vegetation, wet land with vegetation and water bodies have increased by 419%, 219% and 40.7%, respectively, in contrast, the area of barren and poor range has reduced by 36.6%. One of the major causes of these changes is human factors such as population growth and climate variables such as proper amounts of precipitation. In the second period (2002-2016), the area of wet land with vegetation, water bodies and vegetation has been decreased by 94%, 49.3% and 46.7%, respectively; in contrast, barren and poor range land has been increased by 45.4%. Recent droughts increase the temperature and incorrect and non-principled management of water resources has been effective in reducing green cover and water bodies and increasing in bare land. The results show that, during the three decades, built-up land has been increased by 157%, while River bed has decreased by 28.8%. These results indicate a total degradation in the region due to climate change and human activities.

Stilling basins have been used as an energy dissipater downstream of hydraulic structures. Dimensions of the stilling basins depends on hydraulic jump characteristics. In this research diverging hydraulic jump with an adverse slope using baffle blocks and an end sill have been studied experimentally and effect of diverging angle of the walls, adverse bed slope and baffle blocks on the hydraulic jump characteristics have been evaluated. Tests have been done for rectangular stilling basin with different bed slopes (0.025-0.05-0.075) and different diverging angle (3-5-9) degree and using baffle blocks. Discharge and Froude numbers considered to range from 39 to 81.7 lit/s and 4.44 to 8.56 respectively. Results have been indicated that the baffle blocks have been reduced sequent depth ratio and relative length of the jump 12% and 18% respectively (in comparison to diverging stilling basin with adverse slope without block). It was also found that baffle blocks and end sill could considerably improve the general condition and features of an expanding hydraulic jump with an adverse slope and could stabilize the position of this type and bi-stable situation of the flow.

Nowadays, water supply for the sectors of household consumption, agriculture, green spaces and industry is currently one of the most important challenges for governments in many parts of the world, especially in arid and semi-arid climate regions such as Iran. The aim of this study was to simulate the amount of run-off from the daily precipitation for Sarpol-e Zahab city, for the purpose of estimating the required amount of water for the irrigation of the green spaces of the city. In this study. After providing information and using the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) map of city, all individual sub-basins of the basin were produced. All data related to creating and overlaying hydrologic, climatologic and physiographic layers were used according to the HEC-HMS hydrologic model. The run-off depth and flood volume of each sub-basin were obtained through the SCS method. Then the required amount of water for the green areas of Sarpol-e Zahab city was calculated. The efficient rainfall was estimated using four methods including SCS, 80 percentage, reliability, and USDA for each month, separately. Finally, the amount of needed water for the green area was obtained using these four mentioned methods. The results indicated that the role of curve number in the infiltration rate was more than other variants. Impermeability of urban basins and changes was created due to the growth and development of the city such as removal of vegetation, soil compaction, creation of the water collection and leading surface waters, decreasing the amount of water penetrating to soil significantly. The amount of surface water for sub-basins was estimated to be 266000 cubic meters. Besides, the results showed the amount of required water for 5 months of the year (from early May to September late) using four methods of SCS, 80percentage, reliability  and USDA was  equal to 243525, 238062, 267865 and 236458 cubic meters, respectively. The amount of the estimated runoff volume was 266,000 cubic meters. Regarding the area of green spaces in Sarpol-e Zahab city and its daily need of water, this volume of water could  supply the required amount of water to irrigate the green area of the city for five months (From May to September).

In general, rivers are one of the best and most accessible water resources at the disposal of mankind.  So, given the effect of the force of water and changes on the  flow patterns and consequently, on river morphology changes, the analysis of the flow in the river is important and necessary to organize projects, flood control and water supply structures downstream. In this study, by using numerical models CCHE2D hydraulic conditions Dimeh River Bridge between Oregon Bridge Sudjan was investigated. CCHE Model is a mathematical model capable of simulating the flow patterns and sediment transport in rivers and canals laboratory network. The numerical model in 1998, based on the calculations by the National Centre for Water Science and Engineering, University of Mississippi (NCCHE), was developed and has been applied in many research projects related to water engineering. At the outset, the input data required model provides and numerical model was implemented. In the next step, the results of the model were calibrated and validated using field data measurements; eventually, they were extracted and their model results were compared; it was confirmed that CCHE model could still simulate the flow pattern.