مجله تحقیقات منابع آب ایران
سال نوزدهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 66، پاییز 1402)

The sustainability of crucial earth resources, such as groundwater, is a critical issue. Physically sustainable groundwater use is an unavoidable necessity for sustainable development in Iran. In many watersheds, overexploitation and neglecting the reasonable criteria for sustainable use of groundwater have led to the destruction of groundwater-dependent ecosystems as well as many other inevitable losses. Due to the necessity of applying these basic concepts in groundwater management and determining maximum well deepening, in this paper, we assessed the most cited of these concepts during the last century. After examining the historical change in these fundamental concepts, these concepts have been categorized for the use of water resources experts. We found three basic concepts (sustainable yield, safe yield, and Mining Yield) are the most commonly used and the others are defined according to these three concepts. To answer the question of how much water can be extracted from the aquifer, it is needed to explain reasonable and desirable criteria based on these concepts. At the end of the article, in the meta-analysis and summary section, the current approach (executive and scientific) in Iran with the evolution of groundwater management in the world (reviewed in this article) is compared. This comparison indicates that there is a profound gap between groundwater sustainability and the current groundwater management conditions in Iran.

The drinking water of Bostanabad region is mostly supplied from the groundwater resources of Bostanabad Plain. The aim of this study is to select the most reasonable and suitable method for investigating the quality of this resources. For this purpose, the rate and weight of the water quality index were calculated using multi-criteria decision making methods. The quality of groundwater resources was investigated by combining entropy and AHP weighting methods with TOPSIS and WQI rating methods. Parameters of pH, TDS, Na, SO4, Cl, NO3 and F were used in the combined methods of Entropy-WQI, AHP-WQI, Entropy-TOPSIS and AHP-TOPSIS. The coefficient of determination (R2) between the average rank of the samples and the ranks obtained from each of the methods showed that the AHP-TOPSIS method has a high ability to water ranking and classification. The samples were located in the Entropy-WQI method in 2 classes of good and average, AHP-WQI method in 3 classes of very good, good, and average, Entropy-TOPSIS method in 5 classes of very good, good, average, poor, and very poor and AHP-TOPSIS method in 4 classes very good, good, medium and poor. By comparing the combined methods, it became clear that AHP was better than entropy in terms of weighting and TOPSIS was better than the classical WQI method in terms of rating. The results showed that the entropy method is caught in an error regarding the values that are similar and close to the minimum value of the parameters that have a direct relationship with entropy.

In recent years, the increase in the shared groundwater resources’ demand and inappropriate governance in the limited resources’ allocation has led to the increase in stakeholders’ conflicts in several regions of the world. Therefore, due to the dominance of water demand over the aquifer resources, it is necessary to develop an appropriate framework for reallocation of shared aquifer resources based on the consensus among stakeholders. Accordingly, one of the widely-used approaches, is the Bankruptcy Theory, as a subset of the Game Theory. So far, this approach has been used commonly in the reallocation of surface water resources. In this research, after introduction and evaluation of the most important bankruptcy methods, the Neyshabour-Sabzevar-Ataiyeh shared aquifer, as one of the most important study areas with the critical bankruptcy conditions in Iran, were reallocated among the stakeholders. Accordingly, in the proposed approach, the stakeholders’ weights were estimated using the Hierarchical Analysis Process (AHP), considering the most important agricultural, drinking, and industrial sustainable development criteria. Then, the weighted form of the most practical bankruptcy methods, such as Principle of Proportionality (PRO), Constrained Equal Awards (CEA), Constrained Equal Losses (CEL) and Modified Constrained Equal Losses (MCEL) methodologies, the shared aquifer was reallocated among the stakeholders. The results indicate that based on the Bankruptcy Allocation sustainability index, the weighted CEA is selected for reallocating the shared aquifer among the stakeholders. According to the output related to this method, Neyshabour, Sabzevar and Ataiyeh plains can receive 39%, 68% and 45% of the total of their demand, respectively.

Today, two major threatening issues to groundwater are its reduction and destruction, which affects both the quantity and quality of these resources. Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari is a region that have faced to intensive decrease in groundwater resources in recent decades; Therefore, Shahrekord, Boroujen, Sefiddasht and Khanmirza plains were purposefully selected in order to study the effectiveness of groundwater governance using a mixed method. The data required was collected in the field method, that is, by conducting direct observation and interviewing 30 experts about effectiveness principle of the OECD. Findings show that annual extraction of 359.6m3 of groundwater and the consumption of 87.7 percent of it in the agricultural sector, along with the severe reduction of water resources and deficit of cumulative reservoir of aquifers (406.4m3 until 2018), consequences such as subsidence (up to 8 cm visible) and wells piping (up to 40 cm) It has followed in the research area. In this regard, assessing of indicators and parameters affecting groundwater governance shows that from the view-point of experts the "capacity" variable is the most effective, and the "policy coherence, appropriate scales within basin systems and clear roles and responsibilities" variables are the least effective; Therefore, effectiveness of groundwater governance in the territory of research is assessed as "low and weak" in such a way that the connection of this weakness with partiality in affairs causes multiplicity of users, excessive consumption of groundwater resources, reduction of water reserves, and most importantly, reason for prohibition and criticality of plains have been studied.

Site location is one of the spatial analyzes that has a great impact on reducing the costs incurred and launching various activities. So, this is one of the most important and effective steps in executive projects. Due to economic considerations and reduction of monitoring costs, optimization approaches in this study are to reduce groundwater quality monitoring stations in Dez watershed in Lorestan province. In this regard, using an algorithm based on the principle of maximum Shannon disorder index and based on the pollution index of TH, SAR, EC, SO4, Cl, HCO3, K, Na, Ca, Mg TDS and PH parameters, optimization was done for the available 63 monitoring stations in the statistical period of 1387 to 1396 (2008-2017). First, the average rank of each station in the 10 years data was obtained. Then, appropriates models were proposed for the network Shannon disorder index regarding the number of stations and time. After fitting the best model, the results showed that based on SO4, Cl, HCO3, K, Na, Ca, Mg, PH, TH SAR, TDS and EC parameters, 33, 34, 41, 24, 40, 34 , 30, 43, 33, 33, 41 and 28 stations are sufficient for groundwater in the study area, respectively. Also, among the 12 quality indicators evaluated for groundwater, potassium (K) had the highest value of Shannon disorder index. Therefore, it had the maximum Shannon disorder index and was selected as the superior index. The mean squared error and the mean absolute error value were used to validate the results.

Protection of groundwater resources plays an important role in the economic and social development of societies. Over the past few decades, due to overexploitation of groundwater resources, the reserves of this hidden treasure have faced a crisis. For this reason, a more comprehensive approach in water resources management is needed to use the participation of all peoples in water resources management. Women play a significant role in the protection of groundwater resources due to their important role in production and agriculture, and it is necessary to benefit their activism. This research was conducted with the aim of investigating the role of women as activists in Iran's upstream documents and using the qualitative content analysis method. The innovation of the upcoming research is that, for the first time, the role of women in the management of groundwater resources is addressed in the country's policy making. The findings of the research show that despite the emphasis of the programmers on people's participation, there is no specific reference to the activism of different creditors in the water management and the data that indicate the importance of the role of women and their activism are extremely insignificant and it makes policymakers face difficulty in formulating detailed policies. Therefore, it is necessary for programmers to adopt a more comprehensive perspective and use the capacity of all people while paying attention to the special geographical and climatic conditions of different regions of Iran.

In recent decades, increasing population, and then water demand intensified have led to exploitation of groundwater resources.Lack of water along with its lack of proper management and conflicts between its sharing stakeholders. Often in most of these conflicts, the amount of water demand by the stakeholders is more than the amount of available water. Therefore, the management of underground water and withdrawals should be such that in addition to meeting the needs of consumers in a fair manner, the stability of the aquifer should also be taken into consideration. For this purpose, bankruptcy theory, which is one of the cooperative game theory approaches, has been used to allocate water among the Stakeholders. Bankruptcy methods include Proportional bankruptcy(P) Constrained Equal Award bankruptcy(CEA) Constrained Equal Loss bankruptcy(CEL) Talmud(TAL) Piniles(PIN) and Adjusted Proportional bankruptcy (AP). The study area in this study is Damghan plain at the Semnan province. The annual water requirement of this region is about 110 million cubic meters and the annual water withdrawal from the aquifer is about 87 million cubic meters. In this study,10 stakeholder regions from the agriculture, urban and industry sections are considered. The results obtained from bankruptcy proceedings have been valuated by the indicators of majority voting, stability in behavior, groundwater level taking into account uncertainty, and the integration of previous indicators. According to the results, the CEL method is selected as the best method with stability in the same behavior (level of satisfaction) among stakeholders, resulting in groundwater level higher and the highest β index.

Nowadays, intensification of consolidation and land-subsidence are leaded to irreparable damage of financial, environment and human resources. In this research, land subsidence rate was investigated according to the impacts of the main parameters of the aquifer including the geological and hydrodynamic characteristics. Long-term subsidence map was calculated based on SENTINEL-1 satellite data using Differential Interferometry SAR (D-InSAR) method in Qazvin plain from 2015 to 2021. The maximum of land subsidence value of Qazvin Plain was equal to 47 cm during 2015 to 2021 occurred in southwest areas of the Qazvin province. The subsidence spatial distribution was analyzed according to the Weight-of-Evidence (WOE) method to reveal the aquifer characteristic effects. The water-table decline, hydraulic conductivity, slope, land use, fine-grained soil thickness, geology, and bedrock depth were used in WoE method to determine the impact of each parameter on subsidence. The results of WoE, land subsidence hazard potential maps were validated using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) diagram. The most effective land subsidence parameter in the Qazvin plain were the thickness of fine-grained soil with a value of 3.77, while the influence of water level decline was ranked fourth. The land subsidence potential hazard map was able to predict the future land subsidence with an accuracy of 0/87 that indicated the very good prediction. Although water table decline was responsible for the land-subsidence in general, the results of this study indicated that the thickness of fine-grained soil layer was the most effective parameter on the land-subsidence phenomenon.

In this research, the sustainability status of groundwater resources management of 184 aquifers in the Central Plateau Basin of Iran has been assessed based on four quantitative indicators that can be implemented according to the available data. For this purpose, monthly quantity and quality data of groundwater resources, mean recharge rate, pumping rate of exploitation wells, streamflow of hydrometric stations and demographic information were used. The indicators used in this research included the integrated groundwater footprint (environmental dimension), population density at the aquifer level (social dimension), the percentage of groundwater used for agricultural and industrial sectors (economic dimension) and the density of observation wells (institutional dimension), which were calculated for all aquifers during the period of 2000 to 2016. According to the calculated values of four indicators, the ranking of aquifers was performed by PROMETHEE II technique and pairwise comparison of indicators. The results of this research showed that the sustainable management of groundwater resources in the Central Plateau of Iran, especially near the megacities, is relatively weak due to higher population density, less exploitation of groundwater resources for agriculture and industry, weak groundwater monitoring network, drastic groundwater level drop and inappropriate quality of groundwater. The results showed that 17.4% of the studied aquifers were evaluated with good sustainability and 32.6% with poor sustainability. The results of this research are important in order to identify and prioritize the aquifers that need to adopt new policies or revise them to achieve sustainability in the exploitation of these valuable resources.

The concepts of equity-and-justice are presented in the laws, regulations, and decision-making frameworks as a central guiding principle in the allocation strategies of water-resources. Meanwhile, the inclusion of these concepts in the planning-and-management of water-resources faces obstacles such as incomplete conceptual understanding, lack of quantitative-qualitative criteria, unclear relationship between justice-and-fairness and planning frameworks and water-resources management strategies, and lack of concrete examples. This study presents a qualitative-documentary-study that examines what justice and with more focus equity, as one of the justice principles, mean in the context of groundwater planning-and-management. Accordingly, the methods of operationalizing equity and integrating equity into the planning processes of groundwater-resources have been introduced in this study. The results indicate that justice-and-equity are not universally defined. Water justice-and-equity differ according to water-resource content and type, laws, and frameworks defined in each country and water basin. Meanwhile, the use of metrics related to the equity principles, simulation-optimization methods, and the system-model design maybe used to operationalize, metricize, and benchmark equitable water policy and practices at all levels of decision-making (e.g., country, state, and local) to ensure an equitable water future. The study of equity dimensions revealed that participatory programs provide stakeholders with an opportunity to contribute to models and programming; however, skilled facilitation is necessary in order to ensure meaningful and equitable engagement between scientists and communities. In this study rather than providing a prescriptive-solution to “achieve” justice-and-equity within groundwater-resources management, we emphasize the need for contextualized approaches that include pragmatic steps toward more equitable practices and outcomes.

The permanent exploitation of groundwater requires adopting appropriate policies for the quantitative and qualitative protection of this valuable resource. Considering the reliance of a part of the development plans of Mazandaran province on groundwater, in this research, the sustainability and trend of groundwater depth (GWD) changes were investigated in the 1991 to 2020 period (1991 to 2000: first decade, 2001 to 2010: second decade, 2011-2020: third decade). Mann-Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimator were used for trend analysis. Groundwater sustainability was assessed using four indicators including, renewable groundwater per capita (GWRRp), total abstraction of groundwater/groundwater recharge (TAGR), total abstraction of groundwater/exploitation of groundwater resource (TAGE), and water exploitation index (WEI). The values of the Man-Kendall statistic ranged from -2.50 to 3.76, indicating the increasing trend of GWD during the last 30 years in all areas except Babol-Amol (second and third decades) and Noor-Nooshahr (third decade). During the first and second decades, the amount of GWD in Mazandaran province increased by 0.21 and 0.12 meters per year, respectively. According to GWRRP, TAGR, and TAGE indicators, the west of Mazandaran had better conditions than the central and eastern regions of the province. Based on the WEI indicator, Ramsar-Chalous and Noor-Nooshahr areas (WEI<10), Behshahr-Bandargaz, Babol-Amol and Sari-Neka areas (10<WEI<20), and Qaemshahr-Joybar area (WEI>20) were in a satisfactory, worrying and critical condition, respectively. Based on the results, the groundwater situation in a large part of Mazandaran is unsustainable and requires the adoption of appropriate management strategies to prevent the increase in this unsustainability.

In Isfahan province, 27 out of 35 plains are prohibited. Southern Mahyar Plain - Asman Plain is one of these plains as a part of Gavkhouni drainage basin. According to studies, indiscriminate extraction of underground water is the main cause of land subsidence in this region. Since participatory management is one of the basic strategies of sustainable management of water resources, the present research was conducted with the aim of investigating the effect of the variables of awareness, sensitivity and social capital on the willingness to participate in the preservation of underground water in this plain. The research is quantitative in nature and practical in purpose. The statistical population of the research is 357 people who are actual users of agricultural wells in Mahyar Plain. The sample size of the study is 206 people who were randomly selected from five regions of Mohammad Abad, Nasr Abad, Porzan, Middle Jarqouye and Upper Jarqouye. Questionnaire was the main tool of data collection. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by using experts' opinions and its reliability was confirmed by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient. According to the results, there is a negative relationship between sensitivity and willingness to participate, and positive and significant relationship between social capital and willingness to participate. According to the results, suggestions have been made in order to improve the participation of stakeholders in the participatory management of underground water resources.

Groundwater management dependent allocation and correct allocation dependent groundwater renewability understanding. In fact, determining the groundwater renewability is the main foundation for the allocation of these resources, despite providing developed many definitions of groundwater renewability, this concept still has ambiguity. In this manuscript, we review definition of groundwater renewability based on flux, Storage and residence time base on capture in this article; this concept has been challenged the old definition of groundwater renewability. The principle of "capture" refers to the effect of pumping on the flux-storage of aquifer and groundwater renewability. Recent approaches have combined the "flux" and "storage" together, and related the definition of groundwater renewability to behavior of human societies. The results showed that groundwater renewability is a complex concept, which is still developing and improving in the world. In the end, due to the close relationship between groundwater management and drought management (especially considering of resilience), a new step was added to the steps resulting from the review; because it is necessary to take into account the risk of megadrought in order to increase the resilience of development. In this framework we can show a better understanding of the triple relationship of "capture-renewability-resilience"; which is essential for groundwater management.