Assessment of the Effects of Temperature and Precipitation Variations on the Trend of River Flows in Urmia Lake Watershed

Trend analysis is one of the appropriate methods to assess the hydro-climatic condition of watersheds, which is commonly used for analysis of change pattern in a single variable over time. However, in real cases, many hydrological variables such as river flow are directly affected by climate and environmental factors, which usually go unnoticed in routine analyzes. The aim of the present research is to investigate the trend of river discharge in 25 hydrometric stations in Lake Urmia river basin with and without consideration of temperature and rainfall variability. Briefly, the results showed that there is a decreasing trend in all stations, which is significant in 9 cases. Also, it has been shown that regarding to trends in precipitation and temperature, the number of stations with significant decreasing trend will reduce to 7, which shows low impact of climate factors on the reduction rate of discharge in these stations. Based on the results, it can be concluded that climate variations have direct effect in inferring significant trends in river flow, so that considering these variables in studying of river discharge can lead to different results in the detection of significant trends.