Supplying Environmental Water of Gavkhoni Wetland by Improving Agricultural Water Demand Management

Wetlands as bird habitats play an important crucial role in the socio-environmental system. Water restriction which resulted from high water losses in agriculture caused drying up wetlands in arid regions. Eco-environment water right could appropriately be improved by agricultural demand management in the region. The purpose of this study was to not only evaluate the efficiency of different scenarios for the management of agricultural water improvement including "modernization and upgrading agricultural water distribution systems", "improvement of irrigation systems performance in farms", "crop pattern optimization" and "reducing groundwater resource withdrawal" but also the combination of these scenarios to save the eco-environment water right for the wetlands. For this purpose, Zayandehroud watershed, consisting of six irrigation networks and Gavkhuni wetland was selected as the case study. The WEAP software used to model an integrated water management. Additionally, the efficiency of the scenarios evaluated and the reliability index for these scenarios obtained. The results displayed that the most flexible scenario was the implementation of all scenarios with flexibility index of 87.3% followed by “modernization and upgrading agricultural water distribution systems”, “crop pattern optimization” and “reducing groundwater resource withdrawal” with a flexibility index of 81.6% The least flexibility index belonged to the two scenarios of "improvement of irrigation systems performance in farms ", "crop pattern optimization" with a 2.2% and 2.6% value for the flexibility index. Therefore, the implementation of the combination of all management scenarios for agricultural water demand could be the most sustainable solution for the restoration of Gavkhuni wetland.