Assessing the Effects of Climate and Drought Changes on the Water Poverty Index in the Fasa Plain

Climate changes and the occurrence of droughts with different intensities, improper water resources management, overuse of water resources and not paying attention to the water balance of these sources, has caused a water crisis in recent decades. Accordingly, in this research, the status of surface and subsurface water resources in Fasa plain during 2008-2018 using Water Poverty Index (WPI) based on five weighted components include resources, availability, capacity, consumption and environment was assessed. Then, considering the importance of climate changes and droughts occurrence with different intensities on water resources, the correlation coefficient between the climate changes and the drought changes in annual time scale and WPI was used to assess the effects of climate changes and droughts occurrence on WPI in the study area. The results showed that water resource consumption and the water resource capacity indices had the highest and the least roles in WPI (respectively). According to the results, WPI vary from 0.297 to 0.678 in the study area and the worst situation of WPI has occurred in Fasa plain in 2013. Results indicated, the WPI in Fasa plain at the short term is more dependent on drought changes (Compared to climate changes (. Finally, it is suggested to tackling water poverty in the Fasa Plain, the management of water resources consumption of this plain, especially in drought conditions, it is very important.