JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

This experiment was carried out at the Agricultural Research Station of Bu-Ali Sina University to study the effect of different tillage methods on bulk density, yield, and yield components of barley (Hordeum vulgare) cultivars under rainfed conditions. Three levels of tillage (CT: conventional tillage, MT: minimum tillage and NT: no tillage) and five barely cultivars (V1: Local V2: AbidarV3: Valfagr V4: Bahman and V5: Makouei) were evaluated in a factorial arrangement in a completely randomized block design with three replications in the growing season of 2010-11. Traits of bulk density plant height, grain yield, yield components, biological yield, and harvest index (HI) were evaluated. The results showed that maximum value of bulk density (1.09, 1.26 and 1.29 g cm-3 for 0-10, 10-20 and 20-30 cm of sampling depth, respectively) was observed at MT treatment. But, there was no significant difference between MT and NT treatments for this trait. In comparison of cultivars, maximum bulk density was achieved with Valfagr cultivar. Using chisel plow (MT treatment) produced maximum plant height (70 cm) and yield components (513 numbers of spike m-2 and 19.2 grain spik-1). Also, among cultivars maximum plant height (72.7 cm) and grain number spike-1 (23.2 grain spike-1) belonged to Valfagr cultivar. Also, results showed that V3×MT treatment had the highest grain yield (3100 kg ha-1). Therefore, the findings of the study recommend using chisel plow (MT treatment) and Valfagr cultivar.

Topography and land use are among the most important factors affecting the soil formation. Chemical forms of Fe and magnetic susceptibility (χ) are widely used for the evaluation of soil development. This study was conducted in order to determine the effect of these factors on χ. A toposequence was selected in Madvan Plain, Northern Yasouj. Nine soil profiles (paddy and dryland soils) were dug and sampled from diagnostic horizons. Magnetic susceptibility was measured by Bartington Dual Frequency, MS2 Meter at frequencies of 0.46 and 4.6 KHz. Results indicated that less amounts of χ, frequency dependence of χ (χfd%) and CBD extractable Fe (Fed) (3.1, 2.6 and 2.7 times, respectively), and more quantities of oxalate extractable Fe (Feo) and Feo/Fed ratio (5 and 7.2 times, respectively) were measured in paddy soils. The highest value of χ was observed in pedons located on plateau and piedmont plains, and the lowest belonged to those located on river terraces with aquic conditions. Compared to paddy soils, χ enhancement at soil surface was greater (17%) in dryland soils. A positive correlation existed between χ and some soil characteristics such as Fed, clay content and χfd%.

Management of organic and inorganic treatments may have positive or negative effects on soil quality, plant growth and human nutrition. The objectives of this study were to determine the effects of organic and inorganic zinc fertilizer application on soil quality indicators and wheat yield. This research was conducted at Agricultural Research Station Roudasht, Isfahan, Iran. Sewage sludge and cow manure (5 and 10 t/ha), ash rubber (1 t/ha), powder rubber (200 kg/ha), ZnSO4 (40 kg/ha) were applied and wheat was cultivated. Soil samples were collected at tilling and harvest stages. After taking samples and measurements of the soil parameters, we determined the critical limits for each category and class rating for the each soil parameters, and the soil quality index was calculated. The results showed sewage sludge and rubber ash were significantly effective in increasing soil bioavailable Zn compared to other treatments. Application of sewage sludge and cow manure at 10 ton/ha improved soil quality. The expanded soil quality index can help better understand the effect of fertilizers on soil. A positive and significant relationship between soil quality indicators and Zn uptake and wheat yields was also observed. Our results indicate that addition of 10 t/ha sewage sludge as fertilizer can significantly improve soil quality, supplying the necessary amount of Zn for wheat growth.

Rill erosion is the detachment and transport of soil particles by concentrated flow of runoff. It is the most common form of water erosion in the hill slopes. Rill erodibility is the rate at which soil particle is detached and transported by shear force of the concentrated flow. The study was conducted to determine the rill erodibility in different soil textures in Zanjan province using a rainfall simulator. To this end, samples of eight soil textures consisting of clay, clay loam, silty loam, sandy clay loam, sandy loam, loamy sand, and sandy were collected from land surface and transported to small plots (120 cm  100 cm) on a sloped uniform land (10%). The plots were exposed to five simulated rainfalls with a constant intensity of 60 mm h-1 for one hour. Based on the results, there was a significant difference among the soil textures in the rill erodibility (p< 0.01). Rill erodibility of the soils significantly correlated with mineral fraction (sand, clay, gravel) and exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP). With an increase in sand and gravel percentage, soil infiltration rate strongly increased and consequently production of the concentrated flow steadily decreased. Multiple regression analysis indicated that the rill erodibility in the soils was remarkably related to ESP (R2= 0.85, P< 0.01). Clay soil showed to have the highest rill erodibility among the soil textures due to higher exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP= 13).

Plant parasitic nematodes, especially root knot nematodes, cause damage to most of agricultural products, and many efforts have been done to control them. In recent years, application of industrial waste and wastewater sludge as organic fertilizers in agriculture has been increased. To investigate the effects of sewage sludge on root knot nematode pathogenicity in tomato, different weights of sewage sludge (0, 4, 8, 15 and 25% of sludge in the soil) in soil were added as a completely randomized design with six replications. Analysis variance and mean comparison of growth indices of plants showed significant effects of treatments. For example, means of stem length of plants increased in soil with more amount of sewage sludge. This relationship was also observed in other indices and nutrients elements. So using sewage increased nitrogen, phosphorous, calcium and magnesium in tomato shoots inoculated with nematodes while the change of potassium was very small. Application of sewage sludge decreased the number of galls, egg-masses and eggs in egg-mass of root knot nematode.

Soil is one of the most important components in forests and distinguishing soil types and soil capability are first steps in forest management. The main aim of this study was to determine relationship between slope aspect and position, and chemical properties of the soil. Soil sampling was done in Tang-e-Dalab in Ilam province which is a part of southern Zagros. Samples were collected in both northern and southern slopes of oak stand (Quercus brantii). In each slope, three transects 50m apart were sampled. Overall number of samples was 60. After data normalization, the means were compared by Duncan test. Slope aspects influenced organic carbon and total nitrogen of soil. These parameters were higher in northern slope than southern one. Slope position showed a significant effect on C, N and P. Also, concentration of C, N and P were increased by moving down the position. Most amounts of C, N and P were 5.84%, 0.58% and 108.19 mg/kg in bottom, middle and bottom of northern aspect, respectively. The least amounts of C, N and P were 3.31%, 0.24% and 37.83 mg/kg in bottom, middle of southern aspect and top of northern aspect, respectively. The results of this study confirmed that nutrient concentration in northern slope was more than southern slope and nutrient concentration in soil was increased by moving downward.

In this research, the hydraulic behavior of two kinds of envelopes including synthetic envelope, PP450 and gravel envelope with USBR standard in two soil tank models with silty loam texture was investigated. Three water heads including 55, 75 and 105 cm (water logging) from drain level were used. The discharge of pipe drain in the steady state condition for gravel envelope and at 55, 75 and 105 cm water heads was 188.9, 172.0 and 897.0% more than those in PP450, respectively. Envelope hydraulic conductivity rates at gravel envelope for 55, 75 and 105 cm water heads were 24.6, 14.0 and 21.2 times higher than those in PP450, respectively, and gradient ratios in these water heads for gravel envelope were 14.5%, 2.8% and 14.2% lower than those for synthetic envelope. There were also different behaviors in the two kinds of envelopes for hydraulic conductivity and entrance resistance of pipe and envelope in 55 and 75 cm water heads relative to 105 cm. In general, according to the measured parameters in this research, gravel envelope showed a better performance.

With the advent of advanced geographical informational systems (GIS) and remote sensing technologies in recent years, topographic (elevation, slope, and aspect) and vegetation attributes are routinely available from digital elevation models (DEMs) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) at different spatial (watershed, regional) scales. This study explores the use of topographic and vegetation attributes in addition to soil attributes to develop pedotransfer functions (PTFs) for estimating soil saturated hydraulic conductivity in the rangeland of central Zagros. We investigated the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) in estimating soil saturated hydraulic conductivity from measured particle size distribution, bulk density, topographic attributes, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), soil organic carbon (SOC), and CaCo3 in topsoil and subsoil horizon. Three neural networks structures were used and compared with conventional multiple linear regression analysis. The performances of the models were evaluated using spearman’s correlation coefficient (r) based on the observed and the estimated values and normalized mean square error (NMSE). Topographic and vegetation attributes were found to be the most sensitive variables to estimate soil saturated hydraulic conductivity in the rangeland of central Zagros. Improvements were achieved with neural network (r=0.87) models compared with the conventional multiple linear regression (MLR) model (r=0.69).

The ability of different soil tests in predicting soil phosphorus (P) is important in soils amended with municipal sewage sludge. The objective of the present study was to evaluate several chemical extractants to estimate available P for bean growing in 10 calcareous soils amended with municipal sewage sludge from Chaharmahal-Va-Bakhtiari province under the greenhouse conditions. For this purpose, the soil samples were incubated with sludge at a rate of 39-ton sludge ha–1. The amount of available P of the soil samples was determined by Olsen, Colwell, ammonium bicarbonate-DTPA, 0.01 M calcium chloride, BrayІ, ІІ, Mehlich І and ІІ methods. A pot experiment in a completely randomized design was conducted to evaluate the bean plant indices. The results showed that the amount of extractable P with the above methods decreased in the following order: Colwell> Bray ІІ> Mehlich ІІ> Olsen> Ammonium bicarbonate DTPA> Mehlich І> Bray І> 0.01M chloride calcium. The extractable P with 0.01M chloride calcium, Mehlich І, ІІ Colwell and Olsen methods correlated significantly with plant indices (P concentration and P uptake). Thus, mentioned methods could be used to estimate plant-available P in the soils amended with sewage sludge.

The common method of puddling is using a conventional tiller which requires long time of soil operations.In this study, the effects of tillage equipment on moisture characteristic curve of a paddy soil were investigated. The treatments included tillage equipment (T1: conventional tiller, T2: rotary puddler, T3: cone puddler, T4: tractor mounted rotivator) and number of puddlings (P1: puddling once, P2: puddling twice, P3: three times'puddling and P4: four times'puddling). The results showed that at saturation point, tractor mounted rotivator presented the highest moisture content. At field capacity and permanent wilting point, the cone puddler showed the highest moisture value. The two newly made units held more moisture and saved water. In different tillage equipment, increasing the number of puddling reduced soil moisture. Available moisture in the soil without tillage (control) was less than in soils under rotary puddler and cone puddler.

Since the development of surface water control needs accurate access to flow behavior of sediment rates, the lack of sediment measurement stations, the novelty of most stations and the lack of statistics on the deposit make it difficult to properly evaluate and simulate the flow behavior and their sediments. In a watershed, the morphological characteristics and sediment load of flow affect each other. It is, thus, important to know about the extent of this relationship to manage and control the flow in downstream areas. In the present study, using artificial neural networks and sediment rating regression methods based on the data from 136 events and also morphological parameters, we have attempted to predict the sediment load of Bagh Abbas basin. In the first step, we used flow data to predict the sediment load of both methods, and then basin morphological characteristics such as the compactness factor and form factor were added to the models. The results of this study showed that by using neural networks of Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) type with Levenberg – Marquardt algorithm and the stimulation function of tangent Sigmoid with two hidden layers and four neurons in each layer, we can predict suspended sediment discharge rate with a sufficient accuracy. Accuracy of the results obtained from the ANN method was higher than the accuracy of rating curve method. In the evaluation of NGANN & GANN network methods and SRC & MARS regression methods, correlation coefficients were respectively calculated as 0.94, 0.93, 0.767, 0.766, and root mean square errors (RMSE), 0.45, 0.49, 2.3 and 2.3. Nash coefficient (NS) was calculated respectively as 0.71, 0.58, 0.27 and 0.23. Therefore, the most efficient method among the four models is artificial neural network combined with morphological data (GANN). Furthermore, the findings of the study show that adding geomorphological parameters to sediment rating has little effect on the model performance.

One of the major challenges in water resources management is the operation of trans boundary watershed. This has been experienced in case of Helmand River between Iran and Afghanistan since the last century. For such a situation, application of a conceptual rainfall-runoff models that can simulate management scenarios is a relevant tool. The SWAT model can be a relevant option in this regard. However, the required hydro-climatic data for them is a serious obstacle. Especially, this problem gets exacerbated in the case of Afghanistan with poor infrastructures. So, application of this type of model would be more problematic. This paper aims to investigate capabilities of SWAT for the simulation of rainfall-runoff processes in such a data-scarce region and the upper catchment of Helmand River is used as the case study. For this purpose, discharge data of Dehraut station from 1969 to 1979 along with some metrological data were prepared and used to calibrate and validate the simulations. The results were acceptable and the coefficients of determinations (R2) during calibration and validation periods were 0.76 and 0.70, respectively. Notably, with respect to snowy condition of the basin, the elevation band option of the snow module of model had a significant effect on the results, especially in the base flows. Moreover, two Landsat satellite images during February 1973 and 1977 when the basin was partly covered with snow was prepared and compared with the SWAT outputs. Similarly, the results showed good performance of the model such that R2 were 0.87 and 0.82, respectively.

This study was conducted to determine some mineral content concentrations in soils and plants of three elevation classes (1500, 2200 and 3000m) and two phenological stages of flowering and seedling in north facing slopes of Sabalan rangelands. Soil samples from the depth of 20cm and plant samples using 1×1m plots with 10 replications were collected. After sample preparation, the concentrations of minerals such as calcium, phosphorous, sodium, potassium, ion, copper, zinc and magnesium were determined using spectrophotometer and flame photometer. Data was analyzed by SAS9.1 software using a Completely Randomized Design with a Generalized Linear Model procedure. Results showed that elevation had a significant effect on Ca, Fe, Cu, Zn and Mn of soil and P, Na, K, Mg and Mn of plants in the study areas (P&le0.05). Growing stages had a significant effect on all elements of plants except Ca (P&le0.05). Moreover, results showed that in three elevation classes the high demand minerals' concentrations were higher at the starting seedling stage in comparison with the flowering stage. In contrast, the low demand minerals' concentrations in three elevation sites were higher in the flowering stage in comparison with seedling stage. Interaction effect of elevation and growing stage was also significant in relation to all elements except Ca (P&le0.05).

This study was conducted to determine some mineral content concentration in soil and plant of three elevation classes (1500, 2200 and 3000m) and two phenological stages of flowering and seedling start in north-facing slopes of Sabalan rangelands. Soil samples from the depth of 20cm and plant samples using 1×1m plots with 10 replications were collected. After sample preparation, the concentrations of minerals such as calcium, phosphorous, sodium, potassium, ion, copper, zinc and magnesium were determined using spectrophotometer and flame photometer. Data was analyzed by SAS9.1 software using Completely Randomized Design with a Generalized Linear Model procedure. Results showed that elevation had a significant effect on Ca, Fe, Cu, Zn and Mn of soil and P, Na, K, Mg and Mn of plants in the study areas (P&le0.05). Growing stages had a significant effect on all elements of plants except Ca (P&le0.05). Moreover, results showed that in three elevation classes the high demand minerals’ concentration was higher at the starting seedling stage in comparison with the flowering stage. In contrast, the low demand minerals’ concentration in three elevation sites was higher in the flowering stage in comparison with seedling stage. Interaction effect of elevation and growing stage was also significant in relation to all elements except Ca (P&le0.05).

Floods are considered as most destructive among all natural hazards which impose lots of damages on human societies. Hence, it is important to estimate such damages and losses and to determine flood impact areas for management plans. HEC-FIA software as a new model (Sep. 2012) was used in Ghohrood and Ghamsar watershed basins to estimate flood-driven losses and impacts. In this model, HEC-RAS and HEC-Geo RAS are used to produce inundation map in different return periods of flood as HEC-DSS file and by using the data collected in relation to regional agricultural land, building and human, human and financial losses are directly estimated. According to the results of this model, agriculture, building and human losses respectively in Ghohrood watershed are about 354 million rials with 24 buildings affected, and in Ghamsar watershed this is about 12879 million rials with 36 buildings damaged. The advantages of this model over the previous models are estimating the direct economic and human losses for what has occurred and for possible floods in the future. The results can help with watershed management, flood insurance and risk management.

Zinc (Zn) is one of the essential micronutrients for plant growth and its deficiency frequently occurs in calcareous soils. But, a suitable extractant for estimation of plant-available Zn in calcareous soils, amended with sewage sludge, has not been presented yet. The aim of this research was to assess several chemical extractants (7 extractants) for estimation of available Zn in calcareous soils amended (1% w/w) and unamended with sewage sludge. Results showed that Mehlich 3 and Mehlich 1 extractants extracted the highest and the lowest concentrations of Zn in both amended and unamended soils, respectively. All wheat indices (wheat yield, Zn concentration and Zn uptake) increased by sewage sludge addition. Besides, the results indicated that in unamended soils, significant correlations were found (r=0.65^*- 0.91^**) between extracted Zn using AB-DTPA, DTPA-TEA and Mehlich 3 extractants and different wheat indices. On the contrary, in sewage sludge-amended soils, only the correlation between extracted Zn using Mehlich 2 and Zn concentration was significant (r=0.83^**). According to this study findings, the suitable extractant for extracting wheat-available Zn is thoroughly different in calcareous soils amended and unamended with sewage sludge.

Drought is a climatic anomaly that associates with a significant decrease (lack) of precipitation and water resources availability, which spreads on vast temporal and spatial scales, and significantly affects various aspects of life and environment. One of the most common methods of drought assessing and monitoring is calculating drought indices (DIs). Drought areal and temporal extent and its severity are determined by these indices. In this study, an aggregate drought index (Hydro-Meteorological) has been developed for the assessment of hydrological and meteorological droughts in Sarbaz river basin located in southeastern of Iran. The Aggregate Drought Index (ADI) comprehensively considers all physical forms of drought (meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural) through selection of variables that are related to each drought type. In this case, monthly values of Stream flow Drought Index (SDI) and Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) indicators were used for four similar reference periods with principle component analysis and aggregate hydro-meteorological index was defined based on its first component. The study time span was set between 1981-82 to 2010-11, which begins of October in Iran. Results based on the aggregate drought index (ADI) revealed that a long period of hydro-meteorological drought occurred from 1999-2000 to 2005/06 in southeast of Iran, in which, 2003/04 water year has been extremely a drought year. The ADI methodology provides a clear, objective approach for describing the intensity of drought. This index is appropriately able to represent the behavior of Hydro-Meteorological droughts and recommended as an integrated index for assessing and monitoring of regional droughts. Finally, different states of hydro-meteorological drought have been extracted based on conventional regional thresholds, and have been modeled by Markov chain. This made the estimation of drought state transition frequency possible, and made the prediction of next drought state time more real. State transition frequency matrices, are the main instruments for predicting drought states in real time. Results of validation tests and conforming the predicted results with real data indicate that predicting hydrological drought state transitions in the study area using Markov chain method is valid.

Splash erosion is one of the most important water erosion types, causing initiation of other types of water erosion. The objective of this study is to model the splash erosion using fuzzy logic approach in part of northern Karoon basin. The major land usage in the area are irrigated farming, dry land farming, pasture and degraded pasture. For the purposes of this study, soil properties including organic matter; CaCO₃; surface shear strength (SSS); particle size distribution; mean weight diameter (MWD) and soil splash erosion were measured under four different slope conditions (S:%) and rainfall intensity (RI:mm.h-1): 5-50, 5-80, 15-50, 15-80, respectively, using multiple splash sets (MSS) at 80 different locations. Splash erosion was modeled based on combinational rule of inference under five conditions for selection of different operators. The efficiency of the models was evaluated using mean square error (MSE) between observed and estimated values. Results revealed that all models are capable of predicting splash erosion. Also slope, rainfall intensity, MWD, SSS, fine sand and coarse silt attributes were found to be appropriately and precisely using splash erosion.

Precipitation is an important element of the hydrologic cycle and lack of this data is one of the most serious problems facing research on hydrological and climatic analysis. On the other hand, using satellite images has been proposed by many researchers as one of practical strategies to estimate precipitation. The present paper aims to evaluate the accuracy of satellite precipitation data, provided by PERSIANN and TRMM-3B42 V7 in Gorganrood basin, Iran. To achieve this aim, two sets of daily precipitation ground-based data, 2003 to 2004 and 2006 to 2007, from six stations of Gorganrood basin, named; “Tamer”, “Ramian”, “Bahalkeh-ye Dashli”, “Gorgan Dam”, “Ghaffar Haji” and “Fazel Abad” have been used in this paper. The evaluation indices have been calculated and analyzed in different time scales, including daily, monthly and seasonal. The results indicated that the two above mentioned satellite models are not accurate in daily scale. However, they showed reasonable accuracy in monthly and seasonal scales. The highest correlations between satellites and recorded data in daily and monthly scales, for TRMM-3B42 V7 in “Gorgan Dam” and “Bahlke Dashlei” stations, are 0.397 and 0.404, respectively. The comparison of measured and satellite data of winter showed better agreement for PERSIANN model. However, TRMM-3B42 V7 shows better correlation in other seasons. The results also indicated that while TRMM-3B42 data displays higher correlation with measured data, PERSIANN provids better results in predicting the number of rainy days. 

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.