Assessment of clouds seeding project in increasing of water harvesting in the Fars province using remote sensing and geographic information system techniques

Drought and climate change phenomena have severe negative impacts on natural vegetation and agricultural section in Central Iran during the last decades. Cloud seeding is one of the efficient methods to reduce the effects of climate change. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of clouds seeding on rainfall in Fars province. November, December, February and April months in the water year of 2010-2009, selected as the prone month of precipitation in Iran, were evaluated cloud seeding projects in Fars province. Historical regression was used to evaluate the cloud seeding project. In the first step, raster monthly precipitation maps for each month of year in the period was 34 years (1977-2010) were plotted using the Kriging method to measure rainfall amounts of each year. Then, the volume of precipitation in April, February, January, and November in the target area stations were calculated and used as a dependent variable. Next, precipitation time series for each month of the period of 1977-2010 in the control area stations were calculated and entered into the regression as independent variables. Correlation between the volume of rainfall in both regions (target and control) were analyzed. Then, expected rainfall in the region was estimated and its confidence was determined using statistical methods. Comparing expected and actual rainfall, percentage of changes in precipitation due to clouds seeding in Fars province were determined. Results showed an increase of about 15% in precipitation in Fars province during the four months of the water year of 2009-2010.