Investigating the Effectiveness of the Implementation of the Reclamation and Balancing Plan and the Vulnerability of the Plan Projects (Case Study: Ardestan Plain– Isfahan Province)

The aquifer reclamation project has been developed and implemented by the Ministry of Energy with the aim of stopping the overdraft of groundwater resources. It is not possible to evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation of this project in many Iranian aquifers due to the lack of complete implementation of the project or the lack of sufficient information. The study area of the Ardestan is one of the pilot plains for the implementation of the aquifer reclamation in Isfahan province, in which, according to the available data, it is possible to evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation of this project. For this purpose, the quantitative data of the Ardestan aquifer between 2001 and 2021 were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the reclamation project. The results show that the slope of the water table curve has improved relatively in the years after reclamation, and natural factors have had the greatest impact on this improvement. In other words, the amount of groundwater saved due to reclamation shows a negligible effect on the quantity of groundwater in terms of quantity, time, and place. The review of the implementation of the reclamation projects in the Ardestan shows that the performance in some projects was zero and in other cases, the projects were implemented incompletely. Finally, the implementation of each of the projects has been analyzed based on the available data, and the reasons for the failure of the rehabilitation and balancing plan's effectiveness have been investigated.