JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

In the present research, the performances of six empirical models, i.e., simple threshold exceedance, fixed proportion exceedance, quadratic function of storage, power function of storage, cubic function of storage, and exponential function of storage were investigated for estimation of groundwater potential recharge in a semi-arid region. First, the FAO Dual Crop procedure was used to calibrate evaporation from bare soil during the occurrence of potential recharge period. Then, the empirical models were calibrated utilizing soil moisture and potential recharge data. For validation of empirical models, soil moisture and potential recharge were simultaneously estimated for an independent event. Results indicated that 5 of the six models (except for the simple threshold exceedance model) were able to estimate potential recharge with a reasonable accuracy, showing the maximum computed value of NRMSE (Normalized Root Mean Square Errors) of 24.4 percent. According to validation results, exponential, cubic, and power function models provided better estimation of potential recharge in comparison with the linear models. Also, all of the applied empirical models were able to simulate soil moisture during the recharge period with an acceptable accuracy. Finally, the exponential model with minimum NRMSE value for soil water simulation and also acceptable performance of potential recharge estimation was recommended for estimation of potential recharge in the study area.

Side weir is the structure to evacuate extra water from a canal when level of water rises. This structure is mounted on the wall of canal. It is used predominantly to set flow in irrigation and drainage systems or urban wastewater harvesting systems. Implementing guide vanes is a simple way to increase side weir efficiency. In this study, the effect of using guide vanes on discharge and discharge coefficient of rectangular sharp-crested side weirs was investigated. ADV instrument was applied for recording vertical velocity over the crest of side weir. Local discharge was calculated by vertical velocity data for both conditions of presence and no presence of guide vanes. Results showed that in both cases, increasing the Froude number results in the decrease of passing discharge and discharge coefficient of the rectangular sharp-crested side weir. Data analysis also showed that by increasing the Froude number, guide vanes have more effect on increasing discharge coefficient and local discharge. The local discharge increased along the crest and the most passing local discharge occurred near the end of the side weir.  Analysis indicates that using guide vanes leads to the increase of discharge coefficient by about 32%.

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.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of poultry manure (PM) and its derived biochars on chemical properties of a sample calcareous soil. Poultry manure and its derived biochars at 200(B₂₀₀), 300(B₃₀₀) and 400(_B400)°C were incorporated with 400 g of soil at 2% level (w/w) and incubated for 150 days. Some chemical properties of soil and bio-availability of some nutritional ingredients such as phosphorous, potassium, iron, manganese, zinc and copper were determined at different times of incubation. Soil nutrients availability, organic carbon (OC), electrical conductivity (EC) and cation exchange capacity (CEC) increased by addition of all these organic substances. Biochars prepared at higher temperatures were more effective in increasing soil OC and its durability. Addition of PM and B₂₀₀ decreased soil pH, whereas B₄₀₀ increased it. Although highest soil EC was observed in B₃₀₀ and B₄₀₀ treated samples in the early stages of incubation, the rate of increasing in soil EC was higher at PM and B₂₀₀ treated samples. In general, it was concluded that biochar prepared at 300°C had the highest effect on availability of nutrients and their durability in the soil. 

Potassium (K) fixation in soil is an important process which affects the availability of K to plants. There is limited information on K fixation capacity (PFC) of soils in Chahar Mahal & Bakhtiary province. This study was carried out with the aim of determining PFC and its relation with soil characteristics in 10 samples of surface soils in Chahar Mahal & Bakhtiary province. PFC was determined by adding six different levels of K by using KCl salt and measuring cation exchange capacity (CEC) in mineral, organic and clay fraction of soils. The results showed that the CEC in the mineral, organic and clay soils changes from 16.02-19.38, 1.71-3.27 to 29.3-39.8 cmol+/kg consequently. Potassium availability index (PAI) in the soils changes from 0.36 to 0.7 and Potassium fixation index (PFI) changes from 0.29 to 0.63. According to the results PFI and PAI showed significant correlation with whole and mineral fraction of the soil CEC, clay percent, pH and CaCO₃ percent. The results of this study also showed that fixation of K fertilizer in the studied soils plays an important role in K dynamic of soil and K availability to plants.

In this research, to locate and prioritize suitable areas for flood spreading in Mashhad plain, 10 criteria were used including land use, slope, alluvium thickness, distance to well, distance to subterranean, distance from the village, water table drawdown, permeability coefficient, electrical conductivity, and drainage density. Weighting process was done by Analytic Network Process (ANP) and fuzzy logic. After preparing and weighting the maps of all appropriate measures for locating suitable areas of flood spreading maps based on fuzzy logic and analytic network process model, the final map was prepared for prioritizing suitable areas for flood spreading. Then by applying the limiting layer that is a combination of three criteria of land use, slope and geomorphology, the final map of suitable areas for flood spreading was prepared and prioritized. The results showed that among the 10 factors influencing flood spreading, the thickness of alluvium criteria by weight of 0.27 was identified as the most effective layer in suitable areas for flood spreading. Most of the suitable regions located in slope less than 3% that represents its considerable impact in implementation of flood spreading. Mashhad plain potential for flood spreading, after removing exception areas (40.8% of total area), were defined in four inappropriate, relatively appropriate, appropriate and perfectly appropriate classes, that include 2.7, 25.9, 26.5 and 1.5% of the plain area, respectively.

Morning glory spillway is one of the spillways and used when it is not possible to use any other spillways. With the onset of submergence and flow loss, and intensification of circulation and vortexes, spillway performance decreases severely. With decreasing discharge coefficient, the height of water in the reservoir increases and the risk of dam damage, caused by the lack of spillway ability of great flow discharge, increases. Anti-vortex piers are used to solve this problem. The increase of the submergence threshold can provide ability of greater flow discharging, without spillway submergence and its negative consequences. Anti-vortex piers, in addition to correcting circulation and vortexes, may also be effective in increasing the submergence threshold. To investigate this possibility, 110 experiments were performed with the physical model on spillways with square and circular inlet section in different modes and number of anti-vortex piers. Results show that increasing number of Anti-vortex piers increases the submergence threshold and spillway can discharge greater inflow and height of water without being submerged. The effect of the overflow of the circle shape, because currents and vortexes spinning in a circle overflow is higher than square spillway. Also the maximum discharge coefficient was observed when 4 vortex breakers were installed at the angle of 90 degrees.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of poultry manure (PM) and derived biochars on phosphorous (P) availability and apparent recovery in a calcareous soil. Treatments consisted of four rates of P (0, 30, 60 and 90 µgg-1) and five organic substances (blank, poultry manure and derived biochars at 200, 300 and 400°C). organic substances were incorporated with 400 g of soil at 2% level (w/w). All soil treated samples plus control were incubated for 150 days. Soil P availbility determined at 8 different stage of incubation time period. Phosphorous availability was less in untreated soil samples with organic substances and also decreased with time. Although P recovery from inorganic P fertilizer was high in the early stages of incubation time compared to treated soil samples but decreased with time, if not treated with organic substances. Phosphorus availability and recovery increased with time in PM and biochares treated soil samples. Simultanous application of inorganic P and organic substances decreased apparent P recovery. Negative interaction obsorved between organic substances and high rates of inorganic P fertilizer on P availability. It was concluded that PM biochar prepared at 300°C had the highest effect on adjusting P availability in calcareous soil.

Bi-level drainage system is a type of underground drainage systems, in which adjacent drainage lines are installed at different depths. In the Hydraulics Laboratory, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, a model was built, that include a cube tank 2 meters in length, width and height of 1 meters was made ​​of galvanized. In this model, two rows 20 cm apart from each other drains were installed. As drainage, a pipe of three layers to the outer diameter of 16 mm was made of PVC. Within this model of stratified soil was used as a soil layer of low permeability with a hydraulic conductivity of 1.15 cm per hour, thickness of 20 cm soil layer between two light soil layer with 30-cm thickness for bottom layer and 20 cm for the top layer with a hydraulic conductivity of 1.55 cm per hour. For accurate measurement of the water table Behavior in the soil at each point of the model, some piezometer distance of 10 cm from each other on the floor model was installed. After Outfit of model with blow-off valve, Experiments with a heavy irrigation for different intervals between depths of 30 and 50 cm were used in drainage and water table elevation values ​​as observed values ​​were extracted from the model. The results show that the values ​​obtained from Upadhyaya and Chauhan Equation only in small area of water table profiles, which include an area of between the two drainage, are consistent with observed and with a wider distance between deep and shallow drainage, time of drop in water table increased.

This research investigated the effects of super absorbentpolymers on root characteristics of Avena fatua under two soil textures and three irrigation regimes. The study was arranged according to a factorial experiment based on a completely randomized design with three replications. Hydrogel compositions included three types of super absorbents (Aquasorb, Boloorab A and Stockosorb) with two levels of 5 and 10 g/kg of soil, plus a control level. The studied traits were shoot height, shoot dry weight, root dry weight, ratio of root/shoot, root length, root perimeter and root volume of Avena fatua. ANOVA showed that the effect of soil texture was significant (p<0.01) for all studied traits. Mean comparison stated that 10g/kg of Aquasorb with 100% irrigation in sandy loam texture and 5g/kg of Stockosorb with 100% irrigation in loamy texture had the most significant and best results, compared with the control treatments. The results revealed that production of dense root network and root aggregation stimulated by super absorbent polymers, increased root contacts with moisture and led to significant increment in root traits like length, perimeter and volume by preparing water. In addition, selecting the type and concentration of super absorbent polymers depends on soil texture, considering the difference between the best results in two soil textures.
 

Hydraulic jump is the most common method of dissipating water’s kinetic energy in downstream of spillways, shoots and valve. In this paper, Support Vector Machine (SVM) method, as a machine learning method, have been used to estimate hydraulic characteristics such as the sequent depth ratio, jump length and energy loss in three different sudden expansions stilling basins, and the rate of influence of input parameters in each jump has been analyzed. In order to evaluate the performance of proposed method, 936 sets of the observed data have been used for training and testing process of three kinds of expanding channel models. Furthermore, a comparison between semi-theoretical approaches and the data obtained from the best SVM models have been carried out. The results confirmed the efficiency of SVM method for estimating the hydraulic jump characteristics and proved that this method performed well in comparison to the semi-theoretical relationships. The obtained results revealed that the superior model for the sequent depth ratio and relative energy dissipation was the model with (Fr₁,h₁/B) parameters and the superior model for the length of hydraulic jump prediction was the model with (Fr₁, h₂/h₁) parameters.

Recent urban development and population growth in Shahrood tend to adopt a strategy for ground water management. This project, which is a descriptive- analytic type study based on field observation and laboratory analysis, aims to delineate proper sites for groundwater artificial recharge using integrated AHP-TOPSIS.  First, the study area was delineated using remote sensing techniques. Then, appropriate criteria including 5 main criteria and 12 sub-criteria were obtained by field observation and literature review. Then, the appropriate sites for groundwater recharge were determined. The process of the used method consists of designing hierarchical structure of the project, preparation of pairwise comparison matrices, weighting criteria and sub criteria values by experts, and ultimately ranking them by TOPSIS method. Results showed that lithology, slope, water table depth, and land use have the main role in sites delineation. A number of control sites were employed for model validation that indicates 87.20 percent accuracy. Overally, 73.6 and 82.12 percent of the total area were grouped as very suitable and suitable classes, respectively.
 

Modified Universal Soil Loss Equation (MUSLE) is one of soil loss estimation models which has been developed based on the runoff characteristics in the event scale. However, it needs to be evaluated in the plot scale for the semi-arid rainfall events. With this aim, a field study was designed using twenty one plots. Runoff and soil loss were measured using 5-min samples under seven rainfall intensities consisted of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 60, and 70 mm h^-1 for 60 min. Soil loss was estimated using the MUSLE based on the runoff volume (Q) and runoff peak discharge (q_p) and the values were compared with the observed values. The estimated soil loss was about 3.89 times bigger than the observed value on average. In order to improve model estimations, the power of rainfall erosivity index was modified from 0.56 to 0.62, (Q q_p)^0.62. The modification of the MUSLE model improved model efficiency (ME) from -5.5 to 0.47 and decreased the root mean square error from 0.000137 to 0.000031. This study revealed that the MUSLE overestimates soil loss from the small plots in the semi -arid regions. Therefore it is essential to calibrate runoff erosivity index using the data observed in the area. The modified MUSLE can be reliably used to predict soil loss in the small plot scale in semi-arid regions.
 

The uniformity parameters in drip irrigation system are influenced by the slope of manifold and therefore, the evaluation of drip irrigation systems is important in slopping lands. In this research, different slopes of 0.2, 6, 11, 16, 20 and 25% were applied on the ground surface and manifold of drip irrigation system with diameters of 50, 63 and 75 mm and length of 70 m were installed on these uniform slopes. The lateral pipes with 16 mm diameter and 40 m length were placed on the contour lines and connected to manifold bilaterally. The results showed that in the normal emitters in above slopes, the qv(avg) values were 289, 6740, 46, 135, 38 and 27 percent, respectively, qv(max) values were 222, 48, 53, 90, 27 and 9 percent, respectively, and the CV values were 300, 114, 33, 140, 63 and 25 percent, respectively, higher than compensating emitters. However, in the normal emitters in above slopes, the EU values were 33, 34, 12, 25, 17 and 9 percent, respectively, EUa values were 26, 23, 6, 21, 15 and 13%, respectively, UC values were 17, 16, 4, 13, 14 and 9%, respectively, and US values were 10, 8, 2, 8, 5 and 4 percent, respectively, less than compensating emitters. Therefore, even in high slopes (20 and 25%), the irrigation efficiency in compensating emitters were better than normal emitters. The relationship between slope and discharge of emitters represented small changes in discharge of compensating emitters in sloping lands.
 

Water loss and nutrients loss are one of the important signs of natural resource degradation in the catchments. The amount of loss of these resources is affected by several factors including the characteristics of rainfall. In this study, the data of stream discharge (Q), total dissolve solids (TDS), and total nutrient loss ratio (NR) along with rainfall characteristics were analyzed for the events   from1988 to 2002 in the Tahamchai catchment, which is owned by a regional water company. Moreover, soil properties were determined by soil sampling from different points in the catchment surface. Based on the results, there was a significant correlation between Q of the river and rainfall height (r=0.24, p<0.05), while its correlations with the rainfall intensity and duration were not statistically significant. On the one hand, this result was due to the inverse relationship between rainfall intensity and rainfall duration; on the other hand, due to the temporal variations in vthe egetation cover in the area, it controlled Q in the intensive rainfalls. The highest Q was in spring (1.68 m3 sec-1) and March (2.58 m3 sec-1). In this period, rainfall height was high and the rainfalls interval was short. Moreover, vegetation cover was weak, so it could not control surface runoff and reduce Q in the catchment. TDS and NR also significantly varied during the months and their highest values were observed in December (282.55 mg l-1) and (61.77 mg l-1), respectively. Mg²⁺ had the highest amount of water loss in the catchment area. A negative correlation was found between Q and TDS (r=0.41, p<0.001) and NR (r=0.31, p<0.001). This study revealed that spring and autumn were the sensitive period for water loss and nutrient loss in the catchment, respectively. Therefore, promoting the vegetation cover in early spring and reducing improper agricultural practices (tillage and fertilization) could be substantial strategies contributing to conserving the catchment’s resources.