Determining the Environmental Water Needs of Amirkalayeh Wetland Based on a Holistic Approach Regarding Contradiction between Water Use for Agriculture and Wetland Conservation

Extensive exploitation of water resources for agricultural purposes has led to a lack of environmental water supply, weakening, destruction and disappearance of aquatic ecosystems, especially wetlands. In this study, Amirkalayeh International Wetland was selected as a case study, and a comprehensive scenario-based method was used to determine its environmental water needs. The holistic model developed in this research includes biophysical, socio-economic, scenario development, and integration sections.In the biophysical and socio-economic sectors, a comprehensive evaluation of all physicochemical, ecological, biological, economic, and socio-economic indicators was performed, and finally, water withdrawal from the wetland for agricultural purposes was selected as a socio-economic index and Sheng animal species as an ecological index. In the scenario development section, scenarios were determined to maintain the habitat suitability for the selected index in terms of minimum, optimum conditions in comparison with the current condition for wetland stakeholders. Finally, in the integration section, the environmental water requirement of Amirkalayeh Wetland to supply the required water for the selected indicators was determined based on the targeted scenarios in the first and second half of the water year. The results showed that the amount of environmental water volume in Amirkalayeh wetland in the first and second half of the water year in optimum condition was equal to 7.25 and 6.74 million cubic meters, respectively. Furthermore, the minimum environmental water demand of Amirkalayeh wetland for the whole water year was obtained as much as 5.36 million cubic meters.