مجله تحقیقات آب و خاک ایران
سال پنجاه و چهارم شماره 2 (پیاپی 86، اردیبهشت 1402)

In recent years, various studies have been conducted using natural and chemical amendments to reduce runoff and soil loss. However, in many cases, the idea of using special wastes in water and soil conservation has not been considered yet. In this regard, the present study aimed to apply three types of refinery sulfur wastes (i.e., clod, dusty, and mixed with soil) as an additive to evaluate the feasibility of inhibiting soil and water loss on a marl soil from the Marzanabad-Kandolus Region. The experiments were conducted in the Rainfall and Soil Erosion Simulation Laboratory of Tarbiat Modares University between February and July 2021. The study was conducted at a small plot scale with dimensions of 0.5×0.5×0.3 m in three replications. Three levels of one, two, and four g m-2 of any sulfur waste were applied to plots nested on a slope of 25% and subjected to a design rain with an intensity of 70 mm.h-1 and a duration of 30 min. The results showed that the total volume of runoff was significantly (P≤0.04) decreased due to the application of all three levels of sulfur wastes. The different types of sulfur wastes (i.e., clod, dust, and mixed with soil) also had a significant effect (P≤0.03) on runoff volume. Besides, the interaction between application level and type of sulfur waste was more significant (P≤0.00). The application of different levels of sulfur wastes significantly reduced (P≤0.02) soil loss. At the same time, types of sulfur wastes had a non-significant effect (P ≥ 0.06) on soil loss reduction. However, the interaction effect of level and type of sulfur wastes on soil loss reduction was significant (P ≤ 0.01) due to positive impacts of sulfur on quality and hydrologic behavior of the soil. Finally, it is concluded that the consumption of sulfur waste in each level or type is confirmed, preferentially use of 2 g m-2 of dust sulfur.

In order to investigate the effect of mycorrhizal fungi symbiosis and glycine betaine foliar application on some quantitative and qualitative characteristics of rainfed wheat, this experiment was carried out in the Rainfed Research Station of Agricultural and Natural Resources Education and Research Center of West Azerbaijan, Iran during 2017-19 cropping seasons. The experiment was performed as a factorial randomized complete block design with three replications. The first factor was mycorrhizal fungi inoculum at three levels: (1) control, (2) inoculation of seeds before sowing with mycorrhizal fungus inoculum of  Rhizaphagus irregularis (GI) at a rate of 2%, (3) inoculation of seeds before sowing with mycorrhizal fungi inoculum as a mixture of three species of Funneliformis mosseae, Rhizaphagus irregularis  and Claroideoglomus etunicatum  (GM) at a rate of 2% and the second factor was glycinebetaine in two levels (1) control (water spraying) and foliar application of glycinebetaine. The results showed that root colonization was significantly affected by mycorrhizal fungal treatments and increased from 9.89% in control to 30.57% and 40.71% in GI and GM treatments, respectively. Using GM and GI inoculum, wheat grain yield increased by 269 and 187 kg ha-1, respectively. Application of mycorrhizal inoculum increased grain protein content and concentration of phosphorus (P) and zinc (Zn) in the grain. In all the mentioned traits, GM treatment had higher efficiency than GI treatment. Glycine betaine increased seed yield by 160 kg/ha. Foliar application of glycine betaine increased grain yield by 160 kg ha-1. The highest grain yield in GM treatment + glycine betaine foliar application was 2163 kg ha-1 which was 196 kg more than the control treatment. Generally, the results suggested that the application of MI inoculant + foliar application of GB were highly effective in improving the grain yield, harvest index, and quality parameters of rainfed wheat in semi-arid regions.

In this research, the simulation-optimization method was used with the integration of the WEAP simulator model and the multi-objective gray wolf optimization algorithm (MOGWO) for the optimal exploitation of the Dez Dam water resource systems. The main goal in this structure is to provide a solution in which, based on the resources and costs of the region, in addition to reducing the penalty due to the violation of the authorized capacities of the reservoir, the percentage of meeting the needs of various uses in the entire period, especially in the dry months, will also increase. The results showed that in the reference scenario, in many dry years, the percentage of meeting the demand in critical and low water months was close to zero. This will create instability in the system and create irreparable economic losses and will have many social consequences. Optimizing the system based on the proposed structure in this research has improved the percentage of demand supply in critical months so that the minimum percentage of demand supply in these months reaches 30% and there is no month with zero demand supply percentage. The proposed model in this research can lead to better management of the reservoir in dry areas by taking into account the allowed capacities of the reservoir with optimal release of flow in high water seasons and storing part of the flow in the reservoir and releasing it in low water seasons.

Knowing the intensity and duration of rainfall can be useful in many environmental analyses, including the estimation of rain erosivity and soil erosion. There are various devices to record the intensity and duration of rainfall, but purchasing and maintaining them are costly and often requires an operator to take care of them. The present research deals with the feasibility of using the analysis of sound signals caused by the collision of droplets with surfaces and objects in nature to determine the intensity and duration of rainfall. For this purpose, in the laboratory of the Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, in 2022, rain simulators were designed to produce rains of different intensities, then, the sound signals caused by the impact of raindrops with the metal tray that was placed under the rain were recorded and transferred to the computer for processing. Then, the frequency size of audio files was extracted in MATLAB software. The results showed that with the increase in rainfall intensity, the audio amplitude and frequency size of the audio signals increased. Then, the frequency measurements were automatically placed in two clusters in SPSS software using the two-stage clustering method. Then the mean and standard deviation of each cluster were calculated and according to the correlation of each with each other and with the intensity of rainfall, and in order to avoid the multi-collinearity phenomenon, only the average of the second cluster was used as the input of gene expression programming and linear regression models. In order to test the accuracy and correctness of the results obtained from the models, the coefficient of determination (R2), root mean square error (RMSE), geometric mean of error ratio (GMER), geometric standard deviation of error ratio (GSDER) statistics were used. The values of R2, RMSE (mm/h), GMER(mm/h) and GSDER (mm/h) for the gene expression programming model in the training series data were 0.97, 1.85, 1.11 and 1.09 respectively and for the validation series data were 0.96, 2.05, 1.14 and 1.12 respectively. While the values of the above criteria in the regression model were 0.94, 2.74, 1.25 and 1.34 respectively for the training series data and 0.92, 2.91, 1.28 and 1.37 respectively for the validation series data. The results of the above statistics indicate that the gene expression programming model is relatively more accurate than the regression and overestimation model, and the estimated data of the regression model is relatively more spread than the gene expression programming model.

Drip tape irrigation, if designed and implemented correctly, is an effective way to increase irrigation efficiency. The present research was conducted in order to investigate the effects of plastic mulch and discharge on the soil wetting pattern dimensions and water retention from a linear source. For this purpose, an experiment in the statistical design form of random complete blocks with four treatments including two factors of application or non-application of plastic mulch and discharge (2 and 4 liters per hour) was designed in three replications. This research was carried out in farm of the Faculty of Water and Environmental Engineering, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, in a soil with silty clay loam texture. The soil wetting pattern dimensions, 24 hours after the end of irrigation were determined. The soil moisture difference between the second and fourth days after irrigation was considered as a measure of soil water retention. The soil moisture was determined after 24 and 72 hours from the end of irrigation. According to the results, with the application of the mulch, the depth, width and wetted area of the soil increased by 13.59, 20.25 and 38.54 %, respectively, compared to the non-mulched treatments, which was significant. The soil moisture difference between the second and fourth days after irrigation decreased from 1.96% in the non-mulched borders to 0.65% in the mulched borders. With the increase of discharge from 2 to 4 liters per hour, the soil wetted depth decreased from 27.22 to 23.55 cm, the soil wetted width increased from 26.72 to 31.88 cm, and the soil wetted area increased from 602.17 to 658.28 cm2, which indicates significant effect of increasing discharge on these parameters in all cases. The increase in discharge increased soil water retention, but this effect was not significant. The application of mulch has a greater effect on increasing the soil wetting pattern dimensions and water retention than the increase in discharge. Therefore, the use of plastic mulch is recommended to increase the efficiency of the drip irrigation system.

Appropriate estimation of reference evapotranspiration (ET0) has always been challengeas the fundamental parameter to estimate crop water requirement (ETc) in places with a data limitation forresearchers of soil and water resources.In this research, (ET0) had been estimated using the ERA5 reanalysis dataset and the by Penman–Monteith FAO-56 (PM). In the next step, the result was evaluated at the location of meteorological stations in the catchment of Karoon.Climatic data to compute the (ET0) from 26 synoptic meteorological stations of the basin and ERA5 dataset were obtained. Then, daily ET0 were calculated from 1390 to 1400.At first, variables including Tmax, Tmean, Tdew, Tmin, solar radiation, and wind speed were compared with the data of the meteorological station.The results showed that, the ERA5 dataset showed provide reliable temperature parameters and solar radiation estimates (i.e., normalized root mean square error (nRMSE) of < 30%)at the majority of cases. Although this dataset showed high nRMSE in all stations for wind speed values. These comparison between ET0 from observation and ERA5 dataset shown that at the 17 station from 26 station nRMSE less than 30 percent. Overall, the use of ERA5 dataset and estimation of ET0 in places that are faced with data scarcityfor decision- making in new planning can be a useful and reliable tool.

The purpose of this study is to present a comprehensive and analytical framework of a type of governance that, in addition to updating and making the components of governance more intelligent, will increase social participation in all fields, especially in the issue of environmental geopolitics. In order to achieve the aforementioned goal, this research was conducted by reviewing the studies conducted in the fields of governance and metaverse, using the descriptive-analytical method and citing library sources. In this research, while asking why the movement from the third type to the first type of governance coordinates, as well as the need to update the components of the first quadrant of governance coordinates, using the emerging metaverse industry, the concept of metaverse governance is explained and its analytical framework in order to reach a way of governance. Community-oriented - result-oriented - native-oriented, it is argued. Then, participatory management derived from the perspective of metaverse governance is discussed and the methods of applying this type of management in solving environmental geopolitical issues are discussed. In general, the use of the metaverse industry in educational and interactive structures and its effect on the application of participatory management in the field of environmental geopolitics provides the possibility for the leaders of the country's environmental governance to change the paradigm in the way of governance from a government-centered to a community-centered type. Accelerate and change the country's environmental governance pillars from the third quadrant of coordinates to the first quadrant of governance types.

Knowing about the spatial dependence of different soil characteristics in farms is important to achieve more production and better management. The aim of this study was to evaluate the spatial variability and frequency distribution of some physical and chemical properties, including pH, EC, organic carbon, phosphorus and potassium that can be used by plants, texture and cation exchangble capacity, within the various landforms of Isfahan province. The study was conducted on 118 soil samples. The spatial correlation of each variable with a specific semi-variable and the best fitting model for each variable were selected using GS+ version 9 software. Interpolation was done using normal Kriging, Cokriging, and Inverse Distance Weighting with powers of 1 to 3. The accuracy of the distribution maps of these variables were evaluated by the mean deviation of error (MBE) and the root mean square error (RMSE). The results of the geostatistical analysis showed that potassium, sand percentage and pH had strong spatial dependent and the other characteristics had moderate spatial dependent. The exponential model was the most accurate to predict phosphorus, EC, CEC, clay and silt variables while potassium, pH, sand and organic carbon percentage were best fitted with an sphericalmodel. Also, EC had the smallest effective range (14.86 km) and pH had the largest effective range (around 71 km). For potassium, pH and EC variables, the Inverse Distance Weighting with the power of 1 (IDW-1) and for other variables the normal kriging method were recognized as the best interpolation methods.

This field study was conducted with the objective of reducing or alleviating the drought stress effect on yield and yield components of barley varieties by applying biological fertilizers in two consecutive years within the framework of a split plot randomized complete block design with three replications. In the first year of the experiment, the main plot was irrigation at two levels (normal irrigation or full irrigation during the plant growth period, and irrigation until 50% of spike stage) and sub-plot was barley variety (Kavir, Valfajr, Nusrat, and Yusef). In the second year of the experiment, the first factor was irrigation at four levels (full irrigation during the plant growth as the control, irrigation until 50% of spike stage, irrigation until 50% of booting stage, and rainfed cultivation). The second factor was biological fertilizer application at four levels (Azospirillum lipoferum growth-stimulating bacterium, Mycorrhizal fungus Glomus intraradices, combination of Mycorrhizal and Azospirillium lipoform, and control). The third factor was barley variety at three levels (the superior and the susceptible varieties selected from the first year experiment and Abidar rainfed variety). In the normal irrigation conditions (non-stress), the maximum grain yield was 7775 kg/ha for the Kavir variety, and the minimum grain yield was 5650 kg/ha for the Valfajr variety. In irrigation stress conditions (irrigation up to 50% of spike stage), the maximum grain yield was 6209.4 kg/ha for the Nosrat variety, and the minimum grain yield was 4167.7 kg/ha for the Kavir variety. In this research, the Nosrat variety had the maximum tolerance against stress among the studied varieties. However, the Valfajr variety showed minimum drought stress tolerance. According to the results of the first year experiment, two Nosrat and Valfajr varieties were selected. The results of the second year experiment showed that applying Azospirillum lipoferum growth-stimulating bacterium, Mycorrhizal fungus, and the combination of Mycorrhizal and Azospirillium lipoform increased the grain yield up to 2.02, 2.38, and 3.31% compared to the control treatment, respectively. Full irrigation during the plant growth period compared to irrigation treatments up to 50% of the booting stage and rainfed cultivation increased the grain yield by 4.43% and 10.04%, respectively. In general, the Valfajr variety was selected due to the lower percentage of grain yield reduction compared to other varieties and the superiority of this variety in terms of stress sensitivity index, and this variety has the potential to become a suitable commercial variety.