Assessing the State of Water Security in Terms of Water Resources and Consumption (Case study: Western Sub-Basin of Lake Urmia)

Water crisis in the Middle East has made water security the main issue in national security. Water security is a vital element in supply of energy security and food security. Water security is one of the concepts that examines the situation of countries and watersheds in terms of access to water resources, and has emerged in response to the challenging nature of the global water crisis. Various hydrological, structural, institutional, political, social, economic and environmental factors are involved in water security. The present study is an attempt in investigation on the hydrological factors affecting the water security of the western sub-basin Lake Urmia. For this purpose, water availability, water use intensity, monthly runoff variability and portion of irrigated land to cultivated land as the selected indicators in assessing the water resource and consumption security in the western sub-basin of Lake Urmia by study areas Salmas, Urmia, Naqadeh, Oshnavieh, Mahabad and Bukan in the 5-year time period including 2006 and 2011. The results showed that the water resource and consumption security in the western parts of the Urmia Lake basin have relatively similar conditions and included in the weak and middle class. The score of water resource and consumption security for the whole western sub-basin of Lake Urmia for the years 2006 and 2011 is equal to 0.4 (medium) and 0.32 (weak), respectively. This is due to the reduction of total renewable water resources per capita and increasing the water use intensity in the western sub-basin of Lake Urmia, which requires a review in managing water consumption in different sectors.

Rapid population growth and the expansion of urbanization in large parts of the world have increased the need for various facilities and resources, of which water is undoubtedly the most important or one of the most important. This need, which is associated with the heterogeneous distribution of water resources and rainfall in the world, has caused numerous tensions in the field of water supply. It has also made the issue of "water security" an emerging challenge in the field of national and international security. Water security is one of the concepts that examines the situation of countries and watersheds in terms of access to water resources, and has emerged in response to the challenging nature of the global water crisis. Various hydrological, structural, institutional, political, social, economic and environmental factors are involved in water security. The present study wants to investigate the hydrological factors affecting water security in the western sub-basin of Lake Urmia and to provide an overview of the state of water resources and consumption security in the study areas.

One of the most common methods used to assess water security is the use of indicators so that they can express large amounts of complex information in a simple and understandable way. The method of assessing the status of water security using indicators is a new method that is proposed to countries to assess the current state of their water security in this way. In the present study, the state of water resources and consumption security in the western sub-basin of Lake Urmia (by study areas of Salmas, Urmia, Naqadeh, Oshnavieh, Mahabad and Bukan) in 5-year periods including 2006 and 2011 have been investigated. For this purpose, water availability, water use intensity, monthly runoff variability and Portion of irrigated land to cultivated land are considered as selected indicators in evaluating water security in terms of water resources and consumption. Due to the unit differences of the indicators, in order to facilitate the interpretation of the water security situation, the indicators are normalized in the range of 0 to 1 and based on the threshold / reference values. Then, using the weighted average method, the score of water resources and consumption security is calculated for each of the studied areas. At the end, based on the water resources and consumption security score, all areas are classified as "very poor", "poor", "average", "good" and "very good".

The results of the study showed that the water resource and consumption security situation in the western parts of the Urmia Lake basin has relatively similar conditions and is in the middle and poor class. None of the study areas in the western sub-basin of Lake Urmia have very high or even high water security. The score of water resource and consumption security for the whole western sub-basin of Lake Urmia for the years 2006 and 2011 is equal to 0.4 (medium) and 0.32 (weak), respectively. The best water security situation is in Bukan area and the worst situation is in Naqadeh area. The decreased water resource and consumption security over time periods has been due to the reduction access to water and increasing the Water use intensity in the western sub-basin of Lake Urmia, which requires a review in managing water consumption management in different sectors.

According to the results of the study, it can be stated, the trend of water security changes in the western sub-basin of Lake Urmia is decreasing and the root of water insecurity is different in each of the studied areas. This indicates the high need of the basin to make economic and infrastructure investments and increase the institutional capacity of the basin to manage and plan water resources, which shows the need for attention of planners and officials in the water sector.