استان اصفهان

Isfahan Province is located in the arid and semi-arid region of Iran and is considered one of the country's leaders in the production and export of agricultural and industrial products. These characteristics have created challenges for local governance in this province. In the current research, the upcoming scenarios in the field of virtual water application in the local governance of Isfahan province have been investigated using a future research approach. This research is descriptive-analytical, and data were collected through library and field methods and analyzed using Micmac, Scenario Wizard, and Vensim software. The results of the research showed that coordination between various institutions and stakeholders, management of water resources in the agricultural sector in line with other sectors, the collective interest approach, development of water-intensive industries, climate change, rainfall patterns, and population size are among the key variables affecting the use of virtual water in local governance of Isfahan province. In the analysis of key drivers and possible scenarios, the output of the Scenario Wizard software showed that out of the 18 situations on the scenario page, the largest number of situations are related to scenarios that put the local governance of Isfahan province on a crisis path. These situations comprise 38.88 percent of the total situations on the scenario page. Therefore, the future situation of virtual water use in Isfahan province was assessed as critical.

Drought is a continuous period of lack of rainfall that leads to damage to a variety of water consumers, especially in the agricultural sector and reduces their yield. Drought is considered one of the unpredictable disasters. Drought is different from other natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, storms, etc. Based on the type of meteorological, hydrological, or agricultural droughts, various indices are designed to assess droughts such as SPI, PDSI, and SWSI. The objective of this study is to evaluate an integrated index that includes the main causes of drought. The integrated index includes various drought factors such as meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, socio-economic, and environmental. Isfahan province has been selected as a case study due to successive droughts in recent decades. A combination of static and dynamic layers has been used for designing the integrated index. Static layers include land use, slope, and soil type of the basin. Dynamic layers include precipitation, average temperature, available surface water, available groundwater, groundwater quality, and cultivated area. The results showed that the highest water stress occurred in the 1386 and 1391 years in the province and the lowest water stress and wet season in different parts of the province in 1387 and 1390 years.

Restriction of water supply along with increasing demand in recent years has made water scarcity a serious problem in Iran. Today, researchers emphasize that the solution to the problem of water scarcity is not only to increase supply but also to demand management. Because water plays a key role in sustainable development and regional planning focuses on regional potentials and benefits, water resources management is an appropriate strategy for achieving sustainable development. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze and evaluate water consumption in the economic sectors of Isfahan province using the water footprint index and data-output table. The results of this study showed that according to the water footprint index, although the "agriculture" sector is still in the first place in water consumption, but its share of total consumption has decreased from about 91.73% to 67.81% and the share of the "products industry" Food, Beverage and Tobacco ”has increased from 0.40% to 14.74%. This result shows the difference in water consumption with the water footprint approach compared to the traditional approach. Also, the results of this study showed that the per capita water footprint of each citizen in Isfahan province in 1390 was equal to 2767 m3.

Drought as a natural hazard is a gradual phenomenon, slowly affecting an area; it may last for many years and can have devastating effects on the natural environment and in human lives. Although drought forecasting plays an important role in the planning and management of water resource systems, the random nature of contributing factors contributing to the occurrence of and severity of droughts causes some difficulties in determination of the time when a drought begins or ends. The present research was planned to evaluate the capability of linear stochastic models, known as multiplicative Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) model, in the quantitative forecasting of drought in Isfahan province based on the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). To this end, the best SARIMA models were chosen for modelling the monthly rainfall data from 1990 to 2017 for every 10 synoptic stations in Isfahan province to forecast their monthly rainfall up to five years. The monthly time scale SPI values based on these predictions were used to assess the drought severity of different stations for the 2018- 2022 time period. The station results indicated a weak drought at the 2019- 2022 period for Isfahan, Kashan and Naeen, a severe drought in 2019 for Ardestan and Golpaygan, and a weak one in 2019 for the East of Isfahan, KabootarAbad and Shahreza stations. All other stations, except Golpayegan, Isfahan, Kashan and Naeen, faced a severe drought in 2018.

In several fields of Isfahan and Hamadan provinces, due to lack of proper design and hydraulic shortcomings of sprinkler system, the efficiency system is unacceptable and causes ponding of water on the land and runoff from the field. Therefore, in this study, some of the existing sprinkler irrigation systems in Fereidan and Bahar regions were evaluated.
In this research, nine and ten potato fieldsin Isfahan (Fereidan Region) and Hamedan (Dashtebahar Region) Provinces respectively were evaluated for 2 years.Soil physical characteristics such as soil texture andsoil permeabilityat field sites were measured in the Isfahan and Hamedan Soil and Water Laboratory. Also sprinklerirrigation systems in these fields were investigated. From soil characteristics in Frieden region could be noted to medium soilpermeability(1.5 to 2.0 cm.hr-1) andsoil texture (medium to heavy). Thesprinkler irrigation was permanentclassic system.Soil texture (loam, clay loam, silty loam, silty clay loam)and the existing irrigation system were reported moveable classic and wheel move sprinkler irrigation. Irrigationsystems assessments weretaken place according to Merriam and Keller methodology (1978) (5).Uniformity coefficients, potential and actual application efficiency of low quarter (PELQ¡ AELQ¡ CU and DU) were determined.The hydraulic system parameters consists of H, Q and P were measured.First of all, soil moisture in the experimental sites to determine the soil moisture deficit (SMD) was measured.Pressureandflow ratesprinklersatthe beginning, middleandend of theirrigation experimentsas well as in fieldswere measured.Aftertwohours, sprinklers pressure,flow rateandvolume of waterinthecanswere measured.The uniformityandefficiencyof thesystemswere calculated as well.
Nine sprinkler irrigation systems were evaluated and DU, CU, AELQ and PELQ in the fields were equal 60.8%, 57.2%, 75.3% and 66.2% respectively. The results indicated that the poor PELQ was mostly due to lack of sufficient knowledge of the operators about optimal use of the irrigation system including control of inlet pressure, simultaneous operation of too many sprinklers and inappropriate duration of each sprinkler operation. All these factors led to deviation from the designed irrigation time and interval. The low values of DU and CU could be attributed to insufficient pressure and discharge of irrigation systems. In sprinkler irrigation system, the main difficulties in implementation of this system are lack of accuracy in design and insufficient knowledge of users. Ten sprinkler irrigation systems were evaluated in Bahar plain and PELQ, AELQ, CU and DU in the fields were equal 53.0%, 45.6%, 81.1% and 77.1% respectively. Average of PELQ, AELQ, CU and DU in the weel move systems were equal 55.1%, 51.1%, 66.7% and 81.4% and solid systems were equal 52.1%, 43.3%, 73.0%, 81.0% respectively.
Results show that the poor AELQ was mostly due to economics. Poor DU and CU were mostly due to Low pressure and sprinkler's discharge in fildes.

Soil aggregate stability is considered as a key indicator of soil quality and health assessments in rangelands. Many factors and properties such as soil texture, organic carbon, calcium carbonate, sodium adsorption ratio, and electrical conductivity might affect soil aggregate stability. The effects of these factors on aggregate stability of 71 soil samples collected from 4 rangeland sites (2 in semi-arid and 2 in arid lands) in Isfahan province were investigated. Aggregate stability was measured using the wet-sieving method. To optimize the trial conditions for the investigated soils, three shaking times (5, 10 and 15 minutes) were used to impose different hydromechanical stresses on the aggregates of ten soils selected out of the studied soils. The structural stability was assessed using mean weight diameter (MWD) and geometric mean diameter (GMD) of the water-stable aggregates. Significant differences of MWD were observed between the shaking times. The 10-min shaking was selected as best for structural stability assessment in the studied regions because it resulted in better differentiation of soils on the basis of structural stability. Among the intrinsic properties, soil organic carbon content had the most important role in aggregate stability in all zones. However, electrical conductivity (in addition to organic carbon content) had an important role in aggregate stability in the arid rangelands. Log-normal distribution and GMD could represent better the aggregate size distribution when compared with normal distribution and MWD in the studied regions. Overall, wet-sieving method with shaking time of 10 min is suggested to assess the soil structural stability in rangelands of Isfahan province. Therefore, soil aggregate stability and the factors affecting this vital indicator can be used efficiently for assessing and monitoring management effectiveness and rangeland functionality trend.

Drought is a one of the most important natural disasters that have high socio-economic and environmental impacts. However، drought is more than a physical phenomenon or natural event. Its impact results from the relation between a natural event and demands on the water supply، and it is often exacerbated by human activities. The traditional approach to drought management has been reactive، relying on crisis management. Due to the drawbacks of crisis management، employing proper risk management techniques has been suggested. In order to move from crisis management to risk management، in this study، risk of drought in Isfahan province was evaluated. Drought hazard index and vulnerability index are components of the drought risk management. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was used as the index of drought hazard. For the calculation of SPI، the monthly rainfall data in 47 meteorological stations during the period of 1975-2007 were collected. The time series of rainfall data were prepared and for calculation of the standardized precipitation index in a 12 month timescale they were imported to SPI program. Percentage of drought occurrence in each severity was calculated and then the drought index map was obtained. Vulnerability index was calculated through socio-economic indicators (population density and percentage of people involved in agriculture)، and physical indicators (available water capacity of soil and land use). Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) technique was applied for combination of vulnerability indicators. To assign weights to the criteria، an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used. After providing the maps، fuzzy membership functions for every criterion were used for their standardization. For the weighting of the criteria، a questionnaire was prepared and criteria comparison was done using the participatory approach by a group of experts. Finally، the drought risk index was calculated by multiplying the drought hazard index and vulnerability index. The results showed that hazard of very severe drought is mainly concentrated in the central part of province. The North and North East of Isfahan province could experience condition of severe drought. South West of Isfahan province is under moderate drought condition compared to the other parts of the province. Map of drought vulnerability index showed that the most vulnerability is in the West، South and North-East of province. Map of drought risk index showed that the Northern Province demonstrated high risk. To reduce the drought risk in Isfahan province، improving monitoring، early warning، increasing environmental awareness، and promoting water resource management practices should be considered.

The geographical location of Isfahan province has led the province to be at risk of drought. One of the ways to mitigate drought is evaluation and monitoring of drought based on indices that can determine its intensity and permanence in each region. In this research, for drought and trend analysis standard precipitation index and Mann-Kendall test were used, respectively. Also, monthly precipitation time series of Isfahan province was applied to forecast drought from 1970 to 2009. For this purpose, Box and Jenkins modeling approach (1976) was used which has three main steps, namely model identification, parameter estimation, goodness of fit test or time independency and normal test of residual. The results showed that most of the stations in Isfahan province were faced with severe drought in the year 2000 and this situation was repeated one more time in 2008. Also, the results brought forth multiplicative models in all the stations. ARIMA (1,0,0) (0,1,1) showed the highest correlations between control and forecast data in Isfahan, Meime and Ardestan stations, and the model ARIMA (0,0,1) (0,1,1) displayed the highest correlation between control and forecasted data in Naein, Freydoonshahr, Khansar and Natanz. These models were selected as the best models through which the amount of precipitation was predicted till 2015. The trend of forecast data across Isfahan province showed that in most months the trend is not significant.

Women as extension help-agents could play an important role in rural extension programs. This study was aimed at evaluating the success of women as extension help-agents, and factors affecting their success in Isfahan province, Iran. The data was randomly collected from 156 extension help-agents, using Cochran formula. The validity and reliability of constructed questioners were checked, using Cronbach Alfa and K.M.O. criteria. The results showed that 6.5 percent of the agents gained a success score of more than or equal to the average score, 50.3 percent equal to the average score, and 43.2 percent gained less than the average success score. The Effective factors are categorized as the degree of their familiarity with the problems of the population, the degree of their involvement in extension-educational programs, and factors such as their access to rural libraries, financial and occupational background and contribution to community and team work. According to the regression analysis results, participation activities of the villagers, financial status of the help-agents and educational programs provide most influential factors for successful extension programs.

The main purpose of this research is to study the success of rural cooperative companies and evaluate different factors which may influence such a success. For this purpose, sample companies were randomly selected based on multistage and stratification sampling with proportional allocation method,. Finally, 18 rural co-operative companies were studied using questionnaires filled out by 328 ordinary members and 93 members of board of directors and managers of these rural co-operative companies. Inter-organization and intra-organization and structure variables which affected the companies performance and achievement were studied. The findings showed poor performance of these companies. According to the current research, some variables such as membership experience, co-operative structure, co-operative investment, enhancement of member share, education, participation and level of training, awareness (ability) of members have a direct influence on companies' success. The other factors involving function of rural co-operative organization, use of managers’ misuses and abuses in co-operatives have a direct, but negative influence. Share mean value of each member, management experience knowledge and age of people have also indirect positive effect on success and the size has indirect negative influence on co-operative companies .

Freezing is one of the most important climatic factors affecting almond products in Isfahan province. Therefore, it is important to use a rapid method for assessing the resistant cultivars and wild species of these plants. Evaluation of electrolyte leakage (EL) from freezing damaged tissues of almond is an appropriate method for this purpose. In the present work, the effect of freezing on the rate of electrolyte leakage of 10 cultivated almonds (Amygdalus communis cultivars) and one wild species (A. scoparia) was evaluated in Isfahan province. The perfect and mature flowers of all samples were selected at random, and examined under natural (in nature) and artificial (in laboratory) freezing treatments in 3 replicates. All measurements were done using an Ec meter instrument and the mean of obtained data was analyzed statistically via ANOVA and Tukey's tests. In each treatment, increase in the rate of electrolyte leakage of treated samples in relation to the controls was taken as a criterion for comparison. Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) of the flowers of all samples were also measured, with an accuracy of 0.001, under natural freezing conditions. The mean of TDS was 390.8±33.5 mg/L among cultivated almonds (maximum in Safari cultivar with 439±29.3 mg/L and minimum in Kababi cultivar with 355±35.3 mg/L) and 362±55.8 mg/L in the wild almond (a little less than that of the cultivated ones). Linear regression test showed that there was no correlation between TDS and the rate of electrolyte leakage from freezing damaged tissues of the studied samples. Furthermore, the results showed that the cultivars of Tageri (with 7.47% increasing), Azar (with 19.2% increasing) and Rabie (with 22% increasing) are respectively more resistant than other cultivars under natural freezing, and the cultivars of Rabie (with 60.7% increasing), Tageri (with 67.6% increasing) and Hag Mirzaie (with 71% increasing) are more resistant than other cultivars under artificial treatment. These results are in agreement with the experimental observations in the studied area. The freezing tolerance of wild species (with 48.7% and 73% increasing, respectively) was moderate in both natural and artificial freezing treatments.

In order to determine the effect of climatic factors on distribution of Artemisia aucheri and Artemisia sieberi in Isfahan province, thirty nine most important climatic elements in ecological condition of these species were selected. Using a factor analysis method, the most important factors in distribution of these species were determined. These factors which cover 92.3% of the total variance of spatial variation of the species include rainfall, temperature and shining with 41.91, 40.18 and 10.23 percent, respectively. Four most important vegetative types of Artemisia aucheri and Artemisia sieberi in Isfahan province are as follows: 1-Artemisia aucheri and Astragalus,2- Artemisia sieberi,3-Artemisia sieberi as a dominant species, and 4-Artemisia sieberi as a subdominant species. Then the effects of climatic factors on distribution of these species and the average elevation of distribution of these species were determined. The effect of factor analysis on these types shows that rainfall and temperature are the most influential factors in spatial distribution of Artemisia aucheri and Artemisia sieberi in Isfahan province, respectively. In general, Artemisia sieberi has a higher extended tolerance range than Artemisia aucheri, and could be mentioned as a nearly universal species.

This research was conducted to measure the total factor productivity (TFP) of the rural small industries in Isfahan province comprising six types of industries: food, textile, metal, non-metal mineral, chemical, and cellulose. Among the 166 rural small industries sponsored by Jihad-Agriculture Organization of Isfahan in 2001(1380), 60 plants were selected. Cross-section information collected from the 60 plants by a questionnaire in that year confirmed the body of data for this study. The distribution of the types of the 60 selected plants followed the distribution of the types in the plant population. The analytical part of this research consisted of two sections. In the first section, the TFP of the rural small industries was established by applying Cobb-Douglas production function in which the value of the plant production was the dependent variable and the investment costs, total hours of labor, costs of raw materials, and the costs of energy and water were the independent variables. Factors affecting TFP were analyzed in the second section. The estimated coefficients of the first section and the actual data of the variables, were used to calculate the TFP for each plant. Then, another regression model was worked out in which the calculated TFPs were the dependent variable. The independent variables included the mean of the number of the employees' children, the percentage of the production employees with at least primary school level of education, annual number of the off days, dummy variable for the members of the cooperative association, and a few other variables. The results of the first section showed that the TFP of food industries was higher than that of other types of industries and there was no significant difference between the TFP of textile, metal, non metal mineral, chemical and cellulose industries. The results of the analysis for determining the factors affecting the TFP, showed that the existence of a research section in the plant, the insurance of the employees and the mean of the number of employees' children had a positive effect on the TFP. But, the level of the education of the production workers, the area of the plant buildings, and the number of the days off in plant had negative effects.

Muteh wildlife refuge, with an area of about 220,000 ha, is situated at 95 km north of Isfahan. In this refuge, 511 species of vascular plants belonging to 284 genera and 59 families live along with 117 species of vertebrate animals belonging to 84 genera and 37 families. Rare plants of the area were classified into two categories of “endangered” and “vulnerable” according to IUCN, 1996 categories. The endangered species include Astragalus chaetopodus Bunge. Astragalus eriostomus Bornm. Astragalus indistinctus Podl. and Maassoumi Cousinia phyllocephala Bornm. and Gauba Cousinia rhaphiocephala Rech. f. Cousinia straussii Hausskn. and C. Winkl. Ferula kashanica Rech. f. Onobrychis psoraleifolia Boiss. var. Psoraleifolia and var. pleiophylla Bornm. The vulnerable species include Bunium caroides (Boiss.) Hausskn. ex Bornm. Dielsiocharis kotschyi (Boiss.) O. E. Schultz Dionysia caespitosa (Duby) Boiss. Dorema ammoniacum D. Don. Dorema aucheri Boiss. Dracocephalum kotschyi Boiss. Echinophora platyloba DC. Hymenocrater bituminosus Fisch. and C. A. Mey. Pimpinella deverroides (Boiss.) Boiss. Prangos cheilanthifolia Boiss. and Thymus daenensis Celak subsp. daenensis. The rare animal species of the region were classified into four categories: “critically endangered”, “endangered”, “vulnerable”, and “conservation-dependent species”. The critically endangered species are Felis silvestris Schreber F. caracal Schreber Jaculus blanfordi Murray (mammals) Gypaetus barbatus Falco pelegrinoides F. cherrug and F. peregrinus (birds). The endangered species include Vulpes cana Blanford Ochotona rufescens Gray (mammals) Falco naumanni F. columbarius Chlamydotis undulata (birds) and Varanus griseus (reptilian). The vulnerable species are Gazella subgutturosa Guldensteadt Canis lupus Linnaeus Meles meles Linnaeus Hyaena hyaena Linnaeus (mammals) and Aquila chrysaetos (bird). And, finally, the conservation-dependent species include Ovis orientalis Linnaeus Capra aegagrus Elxleben Panthera pardus Linnaeus (mammals) and Ammoperdix griseogularis (bird). The results from this survey were compared with the findings from the survey of some other protected areas in Iran.