JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

Rainfall erosion is the first type of water erosion on the land which is affected by various factors such as land use change and previous rainfall. This study was carried out to investigate the influence of previous rainfalls on the process of rainfall erosion in two marl soils (pasture and that changed to agriculture) under the simulated rainfall. Toward this goal, aggregate samples with the diameters of 6 to 8 mm were randomly collected from the marl areas in the west of Zanjan. Soil aggregates were packed into 48 boxes with the dimension of 30×40 cm to examine the effects of eight rainfall durations with three replications. Eight simulated rainfalls with the duration of 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and 49 min and a constant intensity of 40 mm h^-1 were used in the experiment. The soils were exposed to another simulated rainfall with 40 mm h^-1 in terms of intensity for 15 min to study the rainfall erosion processes. The results showed that the aggregate breakdown was significantly affected by the previous rainfalls in the pasture soil (P<0.01), while there was no significant difference among the previous rainfalls in the case of agriculture soil.  Soil compaction and particles splash were significantly affected by previous rainfalls (P<0.05). Aggregate breakdown and particles splash were 1.41 and 1.31 times bigger than their values in the pasture soil. This study, therefore, revealed that the land use change in the mal areas increases the soil vulnerability to rainfall erosion processes. The rate of rainfall erosion processes in each rainfall event depends on the amount of previous rainfall. Increasing aggregate break down and soil water content by the previous rainfall could significantly influence the splash erosion rate in a marl soil.

In this research, conjunctive and integrated operation of surface and ground water resources of Behbahan plain (Maroon dam's reservoir and existing wells, respectively) was investigated. Simulation of allocation of water demands in this basin was performed by four scenarios, using WEAP software: 1) current conditions (M1), 2) reference scenario for the next 16 years (M2), 3) land development scenario (M3), and 4) optimal scenario (M4). The optimal scenario was performed with multi-purpose linear programming. Based on the results, drinking water demands was satisfied completely in all scenarios. Under the scenario of current conditions, all agricultural demands, except the traditional rights, supplied more than 50% in the low-flow months. In the reference scenario, water supply for agricultural demands in some months was less than 100% and even in June and July, the water supply for North and South Irrigation networks of Behbehan plain was less than 10%. In the land development scenario, agricultural demands of all irrigation networks, except Ramhormoz network, satisfied more than 90% in all months. The optimal scenario performed better than other scenarios for minimum Maroon River flow and volume of storage in the reservoir. Comparison of the four scenarios in satisfying the environmental needs also revealed that the optimal scenario performed better than the other three scenarios in the spring months. However, it provided less than 100% of water needs in the whole year. Comparison of the four scenarios also showed that the first two scenarios had the highest reliability percent in the Jayzan-Fajr, South Behbahan and North Behbahan Irrigation Networks and traditional water rights. Frequency of storage-time-probability from the storage volume in the optimal scenario also showed that maximum storage lifetime of the lasting storage volume was 558 million m3 (which was equal to half of the volume of Maroon dam’s reservoir) with the highest probability (60%).

River discharge is among the influential factors on the operation of water resources systems and the design of hydraulic structures, such as dams; so the study of it is of great importance. Several effective factors on this non-linear phenomenon have caused the discharge to be assumed as being accidental. According to the basics the chaos theory, the seemingly random and chaotic systems have regular patterns that are predictable. In this research, by using methods of phase space mapping, correlation dimension, largest Liapunov exponent and Fourier spectrum power, a period covering 43 years of Zayandehrud River discharge (1971-2013) was evaluated and analyzed based on the chaos theory. According to the results, the non-integer value of the correlation dimension for Eskandari and Ghale Shahrokh stations (3.34 and 3.6) showed that there was a chaotic behavior in the upstream of Zayandehrud-Dam Reservoir. On the other hand, in the Tanzimi-Dam station, the correlation dimension curve was ascending with respect to the embedding dimension, showing that the studied time-series in the downstream of Zayandehrud-Dam Reservoir was random. The slope of the Lyapunov exponent curve for Eskandari, Ghale Shahrokh and Tanzimi-Dam stations was 0.0104, 0.017 and 0.0192, respectively, and the prediction horizon in the chaotic stations was 96 and 59 days. The non-periodical feature of time series was studied by using the Fourier spectrum power. The wide bandwidth, besides other indices, showed that river discharge in the upstream stations of Zayandehrud Reservoir was chaotic.

Lack of the proper conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources causes large water stresses in one of these resources. Conjunctive use of surface and groundwater, especially in arid and semi-arid regions, is a scientific and practical solution for sustainable water resources management. The aim of this research was to prepare some mathematical modeling to apply the conjunctive use of surface and groundwater in the Dehloran plain aquifer. In this study, the mathematical model of the Dehloran plain aquifer was developed using GMS 9.1 and the river data were entered. For the steady state condition, the time series data in the average year 2010-2011 were utilized. In the next step, the time series data from October, 2010, to September, 2011, were used for the unsteady state analysis. In the unsteady state, four stress periods were taken; then the model calibration was carried out in three steps for each stress period; after the optimization of the hydrogeological parameters of the model, its verification was done for the period of 2011-2012 period. After the calibration of the model in the unsteady state, the values of the mean error (ME), the mean absolute error (MAE) and the root mean squared (RMS) errors measured in piezometers were obtained to be -0.24, 0.46 and 0.65, respectively. The results of verification confirmed the ability of the model in simulating the natural conditions of the aquifer. Finally, applying different scenarios to the model showed that the proper conjunctive use of surface and groundwater could increase the volume of water at a rate of 2.23 million cubic meters per year.

Expert aquatic designers face many problems; among these, in hydrology, defective occurrences in time-series can cause errors in the ultimate results of the study. This more often happens in the regions where the number of hydrometric and rain gauge stations is limited. In addition, assessing, developing and maintaining the use of water resources require accessible long-term and high-quality quality hydrological time-series. Thus, this necessitates correcting the statistical flaws and magnifies the importance of how to deal with the problems in the hydrological analyses. Statistical methods are, currently, used to infill data and statistical gaps. In this study, in order to introduce a multivariate method for estimating the missing data on rainfall and runoff, in a hydrologic homogeneous region in the Mazandaran province, self-organizing map methods were examined under two scenarios and some reliable estimates were obtained. In this regard, the correlation coefficients between the observational data and the model output were calculated for the precipitation data up to 0.92 and up to 0.95 for the runoff data. Therefore, to avoid the reduction of uncertainty caused by the inadequate data in water resource management, this method could be used.

In this study, the temporal and spatial variation of snow depth over the mountainous region of Zagros, in the western Iran, for the period 1979–2010 was investigated for the cold season when the probability of snow occurrences was high. For this purpose, daily gridded snow depth data relative to Era-Interim/land were retrieved from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and used for spatiotemporal analysis of snow in the region. Furthermore, monthly maximum, minimum and mean air temperature relative to the weather stations distributed over the region were also used to investigate the relationship between snow depth and air temperature variability in the region. In each grid point, the rate of temporal changes in the snow depth was estimated using the Sen’s slope estimator, while the modified Mann-Kendall Test was applied to assess if the change identified was statistically significant. The results showed that in almost all of the studied months, especially February and March, the snow depth was significantly reduced in the region, which was statistically significant at 5% significant level. Unlike the observed statistically significant decreasing trend in the depth snow in the region, a significant increase in the maximum, minimum and average temperature was observed for all the studied months and the stations. The result suggested that the observed decrease in the snow depth in the region was related to the increasing trend in the temperature during the study period, which could be attributed to the global warming and climate change.

Soil moisture is one of the most important factors that can affect productivity in ecosystems in arid and semiarid regions. The aim of this study was to investigate soil moisture and vegetation changes in the Isfahan province at the seasonal scale. For this purpose, MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST) and NDVI data were used to calculate the TVDI index, and the rate of soil moisture content was also measured at several soil depths including 5, 10, 20, 30 cm. in the growing season. Seasonal changes of LST and NDVI indices were also studied in different climate regions ranging from humid to hyperarid. The results showed that the changes in NDVI and LST in this region were different, depending on the climate type and soil conditions; the LST and its changes mostly depended on the amount of vegetation cover NDVI changes based on the plant phenology in humid regions, which was were greater than that in arid and semi-arid climates. Soil moisture monitoring indicated that the relationships between TDVI and different soil depths varied based on the seasonal conditions. In the early growing season, the soil moisture at the depth of 0-5 cm had a higher correlation with TVDI, but in the middle of growing season, the deeper soil moisture (10-30 cm) showed the highest correlation. Therefore, the findings of this research indicated the importance of the growing season, soil conditions and vegetation percentage and types in the soil moisture studies by using satellite data.

Identifying the rainfall characteristics and understanding the rainfall-related processes is one of the key factors in the scientific management of water resources. Selection of the design storm is the first step in the estimation of the design flood. Determining temporal rainfall patterns is very important as one of the design rainfall properties in flood estimation and the design of drainage systems. This study was concerned with the pattern of rainfall depth during its occurrence at the Dez dam station. In order to plot Huff curves in the Dez dam station, the recorded data of the rain gauge was used. For this purpose, all 280 storms from 1972 to 2016 in different seasons were classified into the five distinct classes including i) 0-2 hours, ii) 2-6 hours, iii) 6-12 hours, iv) 12-24 hours, and v) more than 24 hours. Furthermore, for each class and in each of the seasons, the Huff curves were plotted using all storms information single class. Moreover, for the considered station, all recorded events were considered in a single class and the general Huff curve was plotted using the probability of 50%. In general, the highest number of storms in the Dez dam (about 32.9%) was grouped in the second quartile. However, it was about 55, 48.5 and 50.4 percent in the case of short storms (0-2 hours) for spring, autumn and winter, respectively. In contrast, low percentages were obtained for the rainfalls having long durations. The Logistic equation was extracted for all Huff curves. These curves would be useful in efficient water resources management. The value of the correlation coefficient between the amounts obtained from the Logistic model and the corresponding values extracted from the curves was more than 0.99, which was significant in 1 percent.

Today, the rising surface temperature of the planet and its effects on the water cycle have attracted the attention of many researchers. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of climate change on the Tajan (the upstream of Shahid Rajaei dam) catchment area. In order to study the output of CanESM2 model, the SDSM method was used to estimate the magnitude of the data. Flow discharge changes in Shahid Rajaei Dam were simulated using the weather data of Kiasar synoptic station and the temperature and precipitation changes were simulated using the climate scenarios of RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 for the 2016-2066 period. Also, the effect of different scenarios on the outflow of the Soleiman Tangeh hydrometric station was evaluated by SWAT hydrologic model. The results showed that the annual precipitation would be decreased by 58% and the air temperature would be increased by 14% under RCP2.6 scenario. Also, in the RCP8.5 scenario, precipitation would be decreased by 59.5% and the temperature would be increased by 21%. Peak discharge for RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 scenarios would be increased by 4% and 5.7%, respectively, and the average annual discharge might be decreased by 16% and 16.5% in the future period (2016-2066). Therefore, it can be planned by the investigation of conditions for cropping patterns in the downstream to consider the environmental impacts for future periods.

Soil is one of the most important natural resources of countries in which erosion occurs. In this research, the effect of soil characteristics on the amount of erosion at the suborder level was studied. For this purpose, 77 soil samples (0-30 cm) were prepared and the parameters were determined in the laboratory. The semi-variograms of soil parameters and their spatial distribution maps were prepared with GS⁺ and GIS, respectively. The study area was divided into work units by combining land use and geology maps and water erosion was estimated at each unit by the EPM method. By drilling profiles in different parts of study area, soil suborders were determined by Soil Taxonomy and the average values of parameters in each suborder was estimated. The principle components analysis (PCA) was then used for data analysis. The results showed that three parameters of silt, organic carbon and electrical conductivity could account for 30.384% as the first main component; clay, sand and vegetation could explain 11.189% as the second main component; and slope and height covered 15.330% as the third main component; in total, 63.805% percent of erosion variation could be justified by three main components. The lowest and highest amounts of erosion (69.12 and 343.57 m³/km², respectively) were estimated in Xeralfs and Fluvents suborders. The erosion class of suborders at the study area was determined to be “few” and “medium”.

Hydrodynamic models proposed for simulating flow hydraulic in rivers assume the flow in one direction and simulate the hydraulic parameters based on the one-dimensional Saint-Venant equations. In this research, a two-dimensional HEC-RAS model was used to simulate the flow in the Karun River, between Mollasani and Farsiat stations. Geographic information system (GIS) and river cross sections were used to prepare the altitude map using the satellite image of the study area. Modeling results in river bends showed that the maximum velocity occurred in the outer bend, which coincided with the flow mechanism in the bends. Based on the results, grid type and density have little effect on flow depth modeling. However, the characteristics of the mesh used had a great influence on the velocity distribution, so that the regular high-density mesh had the best accuracy in simulating the flow velocity. Statistical analysis showed that the RMSE for the flow discharge and flow depth were 17.95 m³/s and 0.05 m, respectively. In addition, the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency index was calculated to be above 0.9 for the discharge and flow depth, which could be considered as a desirable value.

A ‘spillway’ is a structure used to provide the controlled release of flood water from upstream into downstream area of a dam. As an important component of every dam, a spillway should be constructed strongly, reliably and efficiently to be used at any moment. Labyrinth and stepped spillways are presented as appropriate modifications to those spillways hardly capable of managing the maximum potential discharge. Owing to their nonlinear crests for a given width, labyrinth and stepped spillways have a larger discharge rate than linear- crest spillways at an identical height. Compared to other energy dissipaters, the combination of stepped and labyrinth spillways is known as a very strong energy dissipater. In the following part, the combination of these two structures and their dimensional change for increasing the water- energy dissipation are addressed. To conduct this study, an experimental flume with a 90- degree bend in the Islamic Azad University of Ahwaz was used. In total, 90 experiments were conducted on three different labyrinth- shape stepped spillway models with two different lengths, three different widths, and five different discharges. Analysis of the results showed a greater energy loss reduction in triangular rather than rectangular or trapezoidal labyrinth- shape stepped spillways. In addition, energy loss was greater in labyrinth spillways with two cycles than those with one cycle. Energy loss was increased by raising the Froude number from 0.05 to 0.1; in contrast, energy loss was decreased with increasing the Froude number from 0.1 to 1.0, which was due to the submergence of steps, a decrease in the roughness of steps and an increase in the intensity of aeration.

The production of compost and vermicompost from manure and different organic residues and also, their enrichment with some fertilizers and other treatments have been extensively investigated. However, no study has yet been conducted on the enrichment of composted and vermicomposted manure with clay minerals. This research was, therefore, carried out to investigate the selected properties of phlogopite enriched manure during the composting process with and without earthworm activity. The experiment was conducted in plastic containers with the lid under an average temperature of 27.5°C and the humidity of 42.5% using a factorial arrangement in a completely randomized design with 3 replications. Factors included levels of phlogopite addition (0%, 20% and 40% by weight), with or without the earthworm Eisenia fetida for different time periods of 1.5, 3, 4.5 and 6 months. At the end of the experiment, the total of organic carbon, nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, and iron, as well as the contraction the available magnesium, potassium and iron, was determined. The results showed that the percent of organic carbon was decreased while the total nitrogen, the total and available potassium, iron and magnesium were increased with time. The results also indicated that a significant percentage of the total content of the elements in all treatments without phlogopite was available. However, in treatments containing phlogopite, the amount of the available elements was increased slowly with time. This was Due to the weathering of phlogopite mineral and the decomposition of manure. In general, it seems that the enrichment of composted and vermicomposed manure with phlogopite can guarantee the supply of nutrients such as potassium, iron and magnesium in a longer period, as compared with the ordinary composts.

Benthos play an important role in the transmission of primary production and organic material (detritus) accumulation of the substrate in the water ecosystems to the higher levels of food chain. Also, they are used as biological indicators to evaluate the effect of pollutants caused by human activities on water ecosystems. To evaluate the benthic communities of Zayanderood Dam Lake, 4 sampling stations were selected on the lake; then, during the year 2014, seasonal sampling at each station was performed. The sampling was carried out by using the sediment sampler instrument with the dimensions of (20 cm × 20 cm). The average temperature of surface and deep water in the Zayanderood Dam Lake during the study was estimated to be 15.6 ± 2.4 and 8.9 ± 1.8°C, respectively. The average concentration of dissolved oxygen in the surface and deep water was varied from 10.3 ± 0.6 to 8.1 ± 0.7 mg/L, respectively. Totally, 2165 samples of benthos were collected and identified in the Zayanderood Dam Lake, belonging to 3 classes, 6 orders and 5 families. The maximum number of samples belonged to Tubifex, Naididae and Chironomidae genera. The dominant genus was Tubifex in all stages. According to this study, therefore, it seems that the structure of substrate, the amount of nutrients, grazing pressure and hydrostatic pressure are the most important environmental factors that can affect benthic community in the Zayanderood Dam Lake.

Localized irrigation methods can be used to manage low water holding capacity in the sandy soils. In this research, the effects of different irrigation systems including pot, tape and drip irrigation with gravity pressures of 0.5, 1.5 and 3 meters on the sandy soil moisture distribution under watermelon cultivation were compared with the furrow irrigation as the control treatment. The moisture content of the soil at different depths and at the distance of 5 and 20 cm from the plant was measured using the TDR device. Water distribution study showed that in the pot irrigation method, the moisture content of different depths of soil was kept constant by 16% during the irrigation interval, but the highest moisture content was observed in gravitional drip irrigation treatment at the depths of 40, 50 and 60 cm; in contrast, the lowest amount of moisture was observed in the pot irrigation treatment. In tape and gravitional drip irrigation system with gravity pressure, in addition to the adjustment soil moisture up to 15 to 22% within the wetting front, soil moisture can be kept almost constant by pulsed irrigation technique. Therefore, while providing the use of drip irrigation system with minimum water pressure available in most of the agricultural land (0.5 m), using pot irrigation can ensure sandy soil moisture retention and soil for the cultivation of fruits such as watermelon plants.

Water resources management depends on the precise assessment of water storage and access in each region, as well as environmental interactions of these resources. The man objective of this study was to delineate the potential zones of groundwater storage using FAHP. Mapping and assessment of it required maps of geomorphology, drainage, density, lineament density, slope and vegetation, which were initially prepared as the input layers in FAHP; the appropriate weights were attributed to them based on FAHP. Potential zones of ground water were classified into five classes of poor, average, good, very good and excellent. The number and density of available wells and springs in the study area dealt with the potential of the region for groundwater storage. So, ROC was used to assess the validation of results, considering spring points as signs of water resources. According to the results, classes of very good, good, average, weak, and very weak were ranked as the first to the last in terms of privilege order with an area of 37.7, 55, 40, 107, and 98.4 square kilometers, respectively.

In this study, the groundwater level (GWL) of the Sarab Qanbar region located in the south of Kermanshah, Iran, was estimated using the Wavelet- Self- Adaptive Extreme Learning Machine (WA- SAELM) model. An artificial intelligence method called “Self- Adaptive Extreme Learning Machine” and the “Wavelet transform” method were implemented for developing the numerical model. First, by using the autocorrelation function (ACF), the partial autocorrelation function (PACF) and the effective lags in estimating GWL, eight distinctive SAELM and WA- SAELM models were developed. Later, the values of the observational well were normalized for estimating GWL. Next, the most optimized mother wavelet was chosen for the modeling. By evaluating the results of SAELM and WA- SAELM, it was concluded that the WA- SAELM models could estimate the values of the objective function with higher accuracy. Then, the superior model was introduced, showing that it could be very accurate in forecasting the GWL. In the test mode, for example, the values of R (correlation coefficient), Main absolute error (MAE) and the NSC- Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (NSC) for the superior model were calculated to be 0.995, 0.988 and 0.990, respectively. Furthermore, an uncertainty analysis was conducted for the numerical models, proving that the superior model had an underestimated performance.

Erosion under the conveying pipeline affected by river flow at the cross to rivers is one the important reasons for breaking the pipelines that can lead to leakage. While the mechanism of erosion under the conveying pipeline in steady flow has been studied by many researchers, studies have shown the importance of scouring research in flood times under unsteady conditions. So, this study has been concerned with the investigation of bed river erosion under the conveying pipeline at the conflict of river in unsteady condition. To achieve this aim, some effective hydrograph’s parameters were changed in different scenarios and the results were compared to the steady condition. The result showed the erosion’s ratio of unsteady condition to steady one was 34 to 69 percent. Also, the rise of flood hydrograph’s peak led to increasing depth erosion from 7% to 22%.

Wetting pattern in a trickle irrigation system is one of the most important characteristics that should be taken into consideration for designing the irrigation systems. Improving the dimensions of the wetting pattern will increase the water use efficiency and irrigation systems. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of rice husk and its biochar application on the wetting pattern in a silty clay soil under surface trickle irrigation. A box with the length of 200, the width of 50 and the height of 100 cm was used. To easily fill and empty the model, it was filled up to a height of 50 cm. The rice husk and its biochar were added to the soil at the rates of 0, 1 and 2 mass percentages based on a factorial arrangement of the treatments in a completely randomized design with three replications. Biochar was prepared in a special furnace at 500°C without oxygen. The experiments were done with a flow rate of 4 liters per hour with the irrigation time of 3 hours. The results of the analysis of variance showed that the organic treatments increased the soil water content in the range of field capacity to a permanent wilting point; the highest increase was observed for the biochar 2% treated soil. Also, the addition of rice husk and biochar in the silty clay soil reduced the horizontal advance and increased the vertical advance wetting pattern.