JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

---

Remote sensing is the main technology for assessing expansion and rate of land cover changes. Knowing the different kinds of land cover changes and human activities in different parts of lands, as the base information for different planning is especially important. In this study, the land cover changes of Isfahan city that is consist of Isfahan and its` surrounded area was studied for the past 4 decades. For researching the study objectives, the aerial photos with scale of 1:50000 taken in 1955, MSS, TM and ETM+ images from Landsat satellite taken respectively in 1972, 1990 and 2001 and the topography maps of Isfahan city and its` surrounding were used. All of the aerial photos and satellite images with the nearest neighbor sampling were georegistered with the RMSe less than one pixel. For image processing, the best false colored composite image was first produced according to OIF index. Then land cover maps of the studied area were produced in 5 classes by using the combination of supervised and unsupervised classification and NDVI index. At the end, the produced maps compared with post-classification method. The results showed that the most urban area sprawl was occurred between 1972-1990 with the mean of 571 ha in a year and the least growth was come about between 1955-1972 with approximately 324 ha in a year. However, by declining the annual mean of green cover 1263 ha during 1955-1972, the most green cover demolition occurred in study area.

---

Salad dressing is a semisolid emulsion and a colloidal system with high consumer demand. Food polysaccharides (e.g starch) are used in the formulation of salad dressing to improve its physical properties and sensory attributes. In this research, 10% mixture of wheat or maize starches were used to produce pregelatinized starches by a double drum drier, followed by milling and sieving. The pregelatinized starches (10%) were applied in the formulation of a salad dressing instead of native starch. Viscosity (at 25 and 35◦C), Hunter color parameters of the samples were evaluated and compared. Pregelatinized starches were more effective in increasing viscosity of the samples compared to corresponding native starches, and the effect of maize starch was greater than wheat starch. Significant differences were recorded in terms of color parameters of the samples. Pregelatinized starch caused higher L values (lighter samples) while the native starch samples were creamy-light yellow. In general, it can be concluded that the pregelatinized starches had better functional properties in salad dressing compared to native starches, and the produced pregelatinized starches can be used instead of native starch in the formulation of salad dressing.

---

Soil fertility measures such as cation exchange capacity (CEC) may be used in upgrading soil maps and improving their quality. Direct measurement of CEC is costly and laborious. Indirect estimation of CEC via pedotransfer functions, therefore, may be appropriate and effective. Several delineations of two consociation map units consisting of two soil families, Shahrak series and Chaharmahal series, located in Shahrekord plain were identified. Soil samples were taken from two depths of 0-20 and 30-50 cm and were analyzed for several physico-chemical properties. Clay and organic matter percentages as well as moisture content at -1500 kPa correlated best with CEC. Pedotransfer functions were successfully developed using regression and artificial neural networks. In this research, it seemed that one hidden layer with one node was sufficient for all neural networks models. The best regression model consisting of organic matter and clay variables showed R2=0.81 and RMSE=7.2 while best corresponding neural network with a learning coefficient of 0.3 and an epoch of 40 had R2=0.88 and RMSE=0.34. Data partitioning according to soil series and soil depths increased the accuracy and precision of the functions. Compared to regression, artificial neural network technique gave pedotransfer functions with greater R2 and smaller RMSE.

---

Correlation between components of Q/I and wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) growth indices was studied in a greenhouse experiment during 2003-04 growing season. Eighty soil samples (0 – 30 cm depth) were collected randomly in farms around the Abyak region, Ghazvin province. Twenty-one samples were then selected based on soil texture and NH4OAC-K. The research included treatments of 21 soils and two potassium (K) levels (0, 100 mg/kg) and was conducted in a factorial manner in a randomized complete block design with three replications for studying correlations between Q/I and treatments. Effect of potassium application on the wheat growth was found to be significant at 5% level. The effect of soil properties on wheat growth was also found to be significant at 1% level. However, the interaction of K and soil was not significant. There were no significant differences among the different equilibrium time intervals. The soil potassium buffering capacity (PBCK) values were strongly correlated with CEC (r =0.996**), clay content (r = 0.921**) and moisture saturation percentage (r = 0.811**). Final equation derived from stepwise regression for prediction of PBCK was as follows: PBCK = 7.419 CEC –19.743 R2adj = 0.782** The equilibrium potassium activity ratios (ARke) were strongly correlated with soluble potassium (r =0.846**), NH4OAC-K (r =0.730**), SP (r = 0/794*), OC (r = -0.477ns) and clay content (r=-0.602*). Similarly, readily exchangeable potassium (ΔK0) was strongly correlated with ammonium acetate extractable potassium (r = 0.871**), soluble potassium (r = 0.778**), saturation percentage (r = 0.551*), organic carbon percentage (r=-0.045ns) and clay content (r=-0.206ns). There was no significant correlation between ΔK0 and ARKe with potassium uptake values by wheat. In contrast, there was a strong correlation between PBCK values and potassium uptake by wheat (r = 0.729**), and relative wheat yield (r = 0.735**). There was no significant correlation between Q/I parameters when KCl and K2SO4 were used, and the soil physicochemical properties. However, Q/I parameters obtained from KCl showed a higher correlation with wheat plant's growth indices.

---

In mountainous basins, snow water equivalent is usually used to evaluate water resources related to snow. In this research, based on the observed data, the snow depth and its water equivalent was studied through application of non-linear regression, artificial neural network as well as optimization of network's parameters with genetic algorithm. To this end, the estimated values by artificial neural network, neural network-genetic algorithm combined method and regression method were compared with the observed data. The field measurement were carried out in the Samsami basin in February 2006. Correlation coefficient (r) mean square error (MSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) were used to evaluate efficiency of the various models of artificial neural networks and nonlinear regression models. The results showed that artificial neural network and genetic algorithm combined methods were suitable to estimate snow water equivalent. In general, among the methods used, neural network-genetic algorithm combined method presented the best result (r= 0.84, MSE= 0.041 and MAE= 0.051). Of the parameters considered, elevation from sea level is the most important and effective to estimate snow water equivalent.

---

Gray mold, caused by Botrytis cinerea, is a serious disease of cut rose flowers (Rosa hybrida L.) in Iran. In order to elucidate the effects of different potassium and calcium levels in nutrient solution on susceptibility of cut rose flowers to gray mold, this experiment was carried out as factorial design in a randomized complete block with four replications at Safi Abad Agricultural Research center in 2008 for one year. In this experiment, rose plants were grown and subjected to three levels of potassium (1.0, 5.0 and 10.0 mM) in combination with two levels of calcium (1.6 and 4.8 mM) under hydroponic condition. Rose flowers from two consecutive harvesting periods were sprayed with the conidial suspension (104 spore/ml) of B. cinerea isolate. At the end of experiment the disease severity was recorded and analyzed. The results indicated that application of 10.0 mM K in the nutrient solution led to increasing rose disease severity to gray mold (30.4 % day-1) compared to 1.0 mM (24.8 % day-1) and 5.0 mM (26.2 % day-1) of K levels (P< 0.01). The increased susceptibility was associated with a decreased concentration of Ca in the rose petals. Correlation analysis revealed that susceptibility of rose flowers to gray mold significantly increased with K to sum cations ratio in the nutrient solution (r = 0.94*). The increase of Ca supply from 1.6 to 4.8 mM resulted in decline of disease severity from 29.6 to 24.6 % day-1 (P< 0.01). Therefore, balanced application of potassium and calcium (5.0 and 4.8 mM, respectively) is recommendable for preventing antagonistic effects between them and reducing of rose gray mold intensity under hydroponic conditions.

---

An extensive data collection on precipitation and runoff is required for development and implementation of soil and water projects. The unit hydrograph (UH) is an appropriate base for deriving flood hydrographs and therefore provides comprehensive information for planners and managers. However, UH derivation is not easy job for whole watersheds. The development of UH by using easily accessible rainfall data is then necessary. Besides that, the validity evaluation of different statistical modeling methods in hydrology and UH development has been rarely taken into account. Towards the attempt, the present study was planned to compare the efficiency of different modeling procedures in hydrograph and 2-h representative UH relationship in Kasilian watershed with concentration time of some 10h. The study took place by using 23 storm events occurred during four seasons within 33 years and applying two and multivariable regression models and 36 variables. According to the results, the median of estimated errors in estimation of 2-h UH dependent variables for verification stage varied from 37 to 88%. The results verified the better performance of cubic and linear bivariate models and logarithm-transformed data in multivariable model as well. The efficiency of multivariable models decreased when they were subjected to principle component analysis. The performance of backward method was frequently proved for estimation of dependent variables based on evaluation criteria, whereas the forward was found to be more efficient for time-dependent factors estimation.

---

Soil temperature is one of the important variables in hydrology, agriculture, meteorology and climatology studies. Owing to the fact that soil temperature is only measured at synoptic stations, reconstruction of this variable in other places is of great importance for many relevant agricultural surveys. Using 10-year (1996-2005) daily meteorological observations, including: air temperature, global solar radiation, precipitation, relative humidity, vapor pressure, wind speed and air pressure data, different empirical relationships are suggested. At statistically significant level (P<0.05), the suggested regressions are reliable for estimating soil temperature in various depths (5, 10, 20, 30, 50 and 100 cm) and different climate types. Using soil temperature as the dependent variable and the other meteorological parameters as the independent variables, the multivariable relationships are classified accordingly. The results indicate that the impact of meteorological parameters on soil temperature is not the same. At statistically significant level (P<0.05), the mean daily air temperature presented the highest correlation coefficients with soil temperature for all climate types (on average, from R2>0.91 for warm semi-arid, to R2>0.85 for humid climates). Other results highlighted that the correlation coefficients decreased as the soil depth increased. The behavior of statistical validation criteria of the suggested relations are also discussed for all the mentioned climates.

---

An increase in the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) from the soil surface to the atmosphere has been of worldwide concern over the last several decades. Carbon dioxide is recognized as a significant contributor to global warming and climatic change, accounting for 60% of total greenhouse effect. The aim of this research was to determinate the emission of greenhouse gases from different land under agricultural uses. Four types of agricultural land farm, including wheat field, canola field, citrus garden and fallow land were selected to investigate the fate of CO2 in these fields. Gas chromatography technique and close chamber method were used to analyze soil gas samples. Total carbon losses from soil in form of greenhouse gases was 4.47, 3.72, 3.38 and 1.89 Mg C ha-1 yr-1 for wheat field, canola field, citrus garden and fallow land, respectively. Total additional carbon to soil from biomass for wheat field and canola field was 4.1 and 4.6 Mg C ha-1 yr-1, respectively. ECB (ecosystem carbon budget) = ∑ C input - ∑ C output. For wheat field and canola field ECB was -0.37 and +0.88, respectively. This indicated that in wheat field carbon was lost and in canola field carbon was sequestrated. Under citrus garden due to changes in soil organic carbon form previous year has showed that carbon was sequestrated.

---

Potassium (K) fixation by phyllosilicates clay minerals is a very important process influencing the availability of K for plants. Information about K fixation is limited in Hamadan soils. The objectives of this research were to determine potassium fixation capacity (PFC) and potassium fixation index (PFI) of 10 surface soils of Hamadan province and the correlation of these parameters with soil charge characteristics. Potassium fixation capacity was obtained using six different levels of added K as KCl and three wetting and drying cycles. Also charge characteristics of soils were determined. Tetrahedral CEC of soils was determined after saturation of samples with LiCl and heating at 300 oC to reduce octahedral charge near zero. The results showed that tetrahedral and octahedral CEC ranged from 4.6 to 16.0 and 0.8 to 4.9 cmolckg-1 respectively. Mineral and organic portion CEC ranged from 6.1 to 20.9 and 0.97 to 9.7 cmolckg-1 respectively. The amount of PFC increased with increasing added K. Mean amount of PFC ranged from 58.2 to 175.03 mgkg-1. Potassium fixation index ranged from 0.23 to 0.67. The results of correlation studies indicated that PFI were significantly correlated with octahedral CEC, mineral and organic portion CEC, total CEC, exchangeable and nonexchangeable K. The results of this research showed that PFI very different in soils. So that this parameter should be consider in K soil testing.

---

An experiment was conducted in order to evaluate the effects of increased concentration of potassium and calcium in hydroponic nutrient solution on the response of safflower to salinity. The experiment was carried out in a glasshouse using a completely randomized design. Four saline treatments (Johnson solution containing 100 mM of NaCl, Johnson solution containing 100 mM of NaCl + 10 mM potassium, Johnson solution containing 100 mM of NaCl + 5 mM calcium, Johnson solution containing 100 mM of NaCl + 10 mM potassium + 5 mM calcium) and Johnson solution without any addition of salt as control. Leaf area per plant, shoot and root dry matter was decreased in saline treatments. The concentration of potassium and calcium in the plants were decreased but those of sodium were increased at salinity. The extent of shoot and root dry mater reduction with salinity was less in saline treatment with additional calcium alone. The addition of potassium into the nutrient solution could not mitigate the negative effects of salt stress on the plants. Increasing the concentration of both potassium and calcium in saline nutrient solution resulted in a greater reduction of shoot dry matter. The results showed that the negative effects of salinity may be alleviated by increasing the concentration of calcium in nutrient solution.

---

In this research, logistic regression analysis was used to create a landslide hazard map for Sajaroud basin. At first, an inventory map of 95 landslides was used to preduce a dependent variable, which takes a value of 0 for absence and 1 for presence of landslides. Ten factors affecting landslide occurence such as elevation , slope gradient, slope aspect, slope curvature, rainfall, distance from fault, distance from drainage, distance from road , land use and geology were taken as independent parameters. The effect of each parameter on landslide occurrence was determined from the corresponding coefficient that appears in the logistic regression function. The interpretation of the coefficients showed that road network plays the most important role in determining landslide occurrence. Elevation, curvature, rainfall and distance from fault were excluded from the final analysis because these variables did not significantly add to the predictive power of the logistic regression. After transferring final probability function into Arc/view 3.2 software, landslide susceptibility map was prepared. The results of accuracy assessment showed that overall accuracy of produced map is 85.3 percent. Therefore, 53% of the area was located in very low hazard, 18.3% in low hazard, 21% in moderate hazard and 7.7 % residual area is located in high hazard regions. Model and then susceptibility map verity was assessed using -2LL, Cox and Snell R2, Nagelkerk R2, and was validated.

---

Kinetical study on non-exchangeable potassium (NEK) release is necessary for management, optimum use of soil resources, availability and supplying power of potassium. Information about NEK release rate in Golestan soils is limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the NEK release of saturated soil sample by calcium using acid citric and CaCl2 extractants from 2 to 1844 h duration in 12 dominant soil series in Golestan province. Different soils indicated various responses to continuous extraction. The rate of K released in different soils was lower in CaCl2 than that of Citric acid. Potassium release was faster in earlier periods of the extraction in all soils followed by a lower release rate. Due to high coefficient of determination and low value of the standard error of the estimate, the NEK release kinetic by citric acid and CaCl2 were well described by Elovich and Parabolic diffusion equations and Power, First order and Elovich equations, respectively. Therefore, NEK release rate was controlled by K diffusion from weathered surface of soil minerals.

---

This paper presents the results of an analytical and experimental study on the characteristics of hydraulic jump in a triangular channel. The analytical consideration is based on the momentum conservation law for the upstream and downstream sections of the jump. The experiments were carried out in a triangular channel of glass side walls with the vertex angle of 94.4°. A wide range of discharge and inflow Froude number were used in the experiments for two different opening heights of the upstream sluice gate. The main characteristics of the jump such as the sequent depth ratio, relative energy dissipation and water surface profile were investigated and the results were compared with those of the rectangular sections. The results showed that the triangular section is more efficient to dissipate the inflow energy. The efficiency of jump in a triangular channel is about 12% more than a rectangular channel for the same condition. As a result, hydraulic jump in a triangular channel needs a smaller tail water depth for a given inflow jet height and Froude number. Also, empirical relations and graphs are presented to determine the characteristics of the jump in triangular sections

---

Channel lining is essential to increase resistance against scour, reducing water losses and as a result increase water conveyance efficiency. Since the canal lining has significant costs, selection of type of lining must be made with great care and with considering engineering properties. One of the conventional lining for water conveyance cannel is concrete lining. Because of advantages of concrete lining including durability (about 40 years) and low maintenance costs, this type of lining is the best option in many regions, however the construction expenses is high. So far many researches have been published about the types and the durability of concretes containing synthetic pozzolans. Due to high production of wheat in our country, nano particles of wheat ash sheath (NPWAS) were used. In this study the mechanical properties of concrete (compressive strength, tensile strength and durability) incorporating nano-particles of wheat ash sheath were investigated. The results showed that the compressive and tensile strength of samples incorporating 20 percent of NPWAS has not statistically significant difference (P<0.05) with the values of tensile and compressive strength of control samples. Therefore, the optimum replacement percentage of NPWAS was 20 percent by weight of cement. Moreover, results of durability of concrete samples showed that concrete containing 20 percent NPWAS were more durable than control samples in the magnesium sulfate solution. NPWAS with having 90.56 percent of silicon dioxide, high pozzolanic activity and ability to perform substantial chemical reaction with calcium hydroxide would decrease porosity and increase resistance of concrete.

---

The temporal and spatial vegetation dynamics is highly dependent on many different environmental and biophysical factors. Among these, climate is one of the most important factors that influence the growth and condition of vegetation. Of the abiotic factors affecting the geographic distribution of vegetation type, climate is probably the most important. Ecological research has traditionally aimed to generalize vegetation types that are assumed to be homogenous. Most of climatic classifications related to bioclimate are focused on limited climatic factors such as temperatue, precipitation and combination of them. As climate is a compound phenomena using limited factors cannot show the climate of a region, and as a result most climatic factors must be considered in bioclimatic classification. Therefore, a climatic study using various climatic factors could reveal the effective factors in distribution of vegetation. In order to determine bioclimatic zones in Chahar-Mahal & Bakhtiari province using multivariate statistical method, 71 climatic variables, which were more important in plant ecological conditions, were selected and evaluated by the factor analysis. The factor analysis revealed that the first three factors which explain %91.8 of total variance among the selected variables were temperature, precipitation, and radiation. According to results and using hierarchical cluster analysis in Ward’s method, bioclimatic classification in Chahar-Mahal province was carried out and 5 bioclimatic zones were found. In addition, Chahar-Mahal province was classified by 4 traditional climatic classification methods (Koppen, Gaussen, Emberger and De Martonne) and those classes were compared to climatic classes obtained by multivariate statistical method. The latter comparison was suggestive of the fact that multivariate statistical method provides a more appropriate classification in comparison to the traditional methods, specially because more dominant vegetation species could be defined for each of the newly described climatic classes. Furthermore, dominant species were determined for each climatic region.

---

In this research, based on the observed data of Class A pan evaporation and application of non-linear regression (NLR), artificial neural network (ANN), neuro-fuzzy (NF) as well as Stephens-Stewart (SS) methods daily evaporation of Kerman region was evaluated. In the cases of NLR, ANN and NF methods, the input variables were air temperature (T), air pressure, relative humidity (RH), solar radiation (SR) and wind speed (U2) which were used in various combinations to estimate daily pan evaporation (Ep) defined as output variable. Performance of the methods was evaluated by comparing the observed and estimated data, using determination coefficient (R2), root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE). Based on the observed data at Kerman meteorological station, the monthly and annual average evaporation values of the region were 272 and 3263 mm, respectively. The results of this study indicated that NF method is the most suitable method to estimate daily Class A pan evaporation. The statistics criteria of this model which is constituted based on the 5 input parameters were R2 = 0.85, RMSE=1.61 and MAE= 1.24 mm day-1. The sensitivity analysis of NF model revealed that the estimated EP is more sensitive to T and U2 (as the input variables), respectively. Due to weak accuracy of SS method, a new modification step of the model was also developed based on the SR and T in order to have a more exact daily evaporation estimation of the region. However, the result of the modified model was not acceptable

---

One important parameter in determining the allowable stress to prevent soil compaction is pre‌compaction stress (σpc). If the stress induced into the soil due to agricultural machinery traffic is lower than the σpc, the possibility of the irreversible (plastic) deformation is low. In this study, plate sinkage test (PST) and confined compression test (CCT) were used to determine the σpc of the disturbed soil samples obtained from the topsoil of a long-term organic amendment experiment. In the organic amendment experiment, organic manures (sewage sludgeو compost, farmyard manure) at three rates (25, 50 and 100 t ha-1) and one inorganic fertilizer combination (250 kg urea ha-1 and 250 kg ammonium phosphate ha-1) were added to a silty clay loam soil for seven years under wheat-corn rotation. The effect of organic and inorganic fertilizers and gravimetrical water contents (17.1 and 20.9% db) on the σpc values was determined using two statistical designs: 1) factorial design and 2) orthogonal contrasts in a completely randomized design with three replications. The σpc values were estimated by the following methods: 1) Casagrande, 2) maximum curvature and 3) intercept of virgin compression line (VCL) with the x-axis at zero strain. The results showed that in both tests, the σpc values for treatments amended with organic manures had over-estimations and the values of the over-estimation were increased as the manure application rate increased. The values of the over-estimations for CCT were higher than for PST. Therefore, it can be concluded that the results of the PST are more reliable. The σpc values estimated by any of the three procedures depend on the manure treatment as well as the initial water content of the soil. For determining the stress at the threshold of the compaction for the un-manure soils (control and inorganic fertilizer) or the treatments amended with low application rate (25 t ha-1) of the organic manures, the PST and the Casagrande procedure can be recommended. In contrast, for the soils amended with high application rates (50 and 100 t ha-1), the PST and the maximum curvature procedure can be used.

---

Measuring the cation exchange capacity (CEC) as one of the most important chemical soil properties is very time consuming and costly. Pedotransfer functions (PTFs) provide an alternative to direct measurement by estimating CEC. The objective of this study was to develop PTFs for predicting CEC of Guilan province soils using artificial neural network (ANN) and multiple-linear regression method and also determine whether grouping based on soil textural class and organic carbon content improved estimating CEC by two methods. For this study, 1662 soil samples of Guilan province were used from soil chemistry laboratory database of Rice Research Institute. 1109 data were used for training (the development of PTFs) and 553 data for testing (the validation of PTFs) of the models. The results showed that organic carbon was the most important variable in the estimation of cation exchange capacity for total data and all classes in textural and organic C groups in both methods. ANN performed better than the regression method in predicting CEC in all data, and grouping of data only improved the prediction of PTFs in Sand and Sandy clay loam classes by ANN method.

---

  In this study, chemical quality of Zayandehrud river between Zayandehrud Regulating Dam and Nekouabad Diversion Dam, three discharging drains and one Fehlman well were measured using HPLC with determine the pollution concentration of diazinon insecticide from July 2006 to March 2007. Also, Zayandehrud’s assimilative capacity was determined. The results showed that river water and drains were not polluted to diazinon. Physical, chemical and biological factors effective in the diazinon detection were assessed. Diazinon was detected in the groundwater sample in October with concentration of 32.1 ng/L. This level was lower than the maximum permissible level for drinking water. Also, the NO^-₃ concentration in this month was 24 mg/L that is 2.4 times the standard level (10 mg/L). Due to the increased discharge of different wastewaters to Zayandehrud, its assimilative capacity decreased from upstream to downstream. So, prevention of use of pesticides and pre-treatment of wastewaters that are discharged to this river need more attention.