نشریه مدیریت جامع حوزه های آبخیز
سال سوم شماره 4 (پیاپی 10، زمستان 1402)

Water resources management is a set of methods, measures and plans compiled for the control, development, and optimal exploitation of water reserves which are adjusted and guided according to all or part of the economic, social, environmental, political aspects. The increasing human needs for ecological goods and services over the past few decades have led to increased attention to wetlands management, and today wetlands ecosystem management is considered one of the land management approaches. The purpose of this research is to investigate the integrated management indicators of Hamon wetland using factor analysis. This research was conducted by document and survey method and using a questionnaire in the villages of Hamon and Nimroz cities, during which, in addition to field visits and observations of the villages, the indigenous people of the region were interviewed. 

Hamon wetland, with an area of nearly 5700 km2 and a depth range of 1 to 5 meters in the desert area of the east of the country, in the region of Sistan is located between 60°39' to 61°35' east longitude and 31°15' to 31°32' north latitude, which is considered as the largest freshwater lake in the entire plateau of Iran. In this study, three economic, social and environmental indicators were selected for Hamon wetland management. The total number of households under study in the two cities is 1987 households from the outskirts of Koh-Khwaje and Talabhamun, and 321 questionnaires were considered to conduct this research. One of the statistical methods for analyzing the information in the data set is factor analysis. This method is used to determine the most influential variables when the number of variables under consideration is large and the relationships between them are unknown.

Considering the importance of Hamon wetland in ecological, economic, social dimensions and direct relationship with people's livelihood and environmental sustainability, it is necessary to change the attitude in the type of management and proper planning to restore Hamon wetland. In this research, the data obtained from the questionnaire was examined and analyzed. Based on the obtained results, it was found that all dimensions and indicators of the research had a significant impact on the integrated management of Hamon wetland. The factor load for the economic dimension is equal to 0.95, the social-participatory dimension is equal to 0.97 and the environmental dimension is equal to 0.85, which shows the social-participatory dimension and its indicators such as the revival of agriculture by the wetland. All kinds of partnerships in this field have had the greatest role and impact in the management of the Hamon wetland. Also, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was obtained for economic, social-participatory and environmental dimensions, which were respectively 0.839, 0.91 and 0.75, showing that the reliability of the questionnaires was good. The integrated management of Hamon wetland requires a kind of systemic approach, which will not be possible without paying attention to local communities and their participatory role in decision-making and planning. The effective factors extracted from the factor analysis of economic indicators showed that employment and income are the main factors in the field of integrated management of Hamon wetland. In this context, by supporting the private sector and increasing investment in the field of creating various businesses in line with the potentials of our wetlands, job security and economic well-being can be provided for the local residents. In this context, considering the interwoven relationship between the natives' income and the vitality of the Hamon wetland, with local management and planning in the field of entrepreneurship, and taking into account the local culture and the prosperity of the handicrafts market, and supporting it, it provided the conditions for economic well-being. Optimal and appropriate training along with the participation of local people is the main factor in the integrated management of Hamon wetland.

For the optimal and integrated management of water resources, a comprehensive look at the economic, social, physical, environmental, cultural and political characteristics is necessary so that the most optimal ones can be developed with a set of methods and strategic plans. Feedback from the proper management of the Hamon wetland is economically very important for the local residents, and it is also considered an important and wonderful resource from the environmental point of view. It is necessary to provide facilities and support platforms in order to increase private sector investment in creating employment and entrepreneurship, as well as supporting handicrafts and the development of small industries, to provide conditions for the economic dependence of local people and excessive exploitation of resources. Managing and protecting the natural potentials of any geographical environment requires comprehensive development and human sustainability in that environment; therefore, it is necessary to provide educational platforms and hold appropriate training courses on the importance of natural resources in the human environment and efforts to protect and optimally exploit it. In this context, it is necessary to take into consideration the local management and use the existing potentials by holding training courses and providing the necessary platforms for the use of local power in the direction of the restoration and reconstruction of the Hamon wetland, which leads to the sustainability of the natural environment in the long run.

Vegetation provides valuable ecosystem services to various terrestrial ecosystems, such as carbon sequestration, fodder supply, and water resource regulation. It is predicted that the fluctuation and changes of climate in the future will have a great impact on terrestrial ecosystems, including the destruction of rangelands and desertification, increased drying of trees and reduction of carbon sequestration. Drought is a complex and climatic phenomenon that occurs frequently or intermittently in any type of climate and its progress is slow, so that its effects may appear gradually. Due to the high sensitivity of vegetation to climate fluctuations especially in arid and semi-arid regions, droughts can affect vegetation faster and disrupt its natural growth. Therefore, knowing the severity, duration and place covered by the drought phenomenon could reduce the damages. As the global air temperature is continuously increasing under the influence of climate change, the spatio-temporal pattern of rainfall and land use is expected to change significantly in the coming decades. Therefore, it is necessary to develop more accurate and effective drought monitoring tools. In this case, remote sensing plays an important role in drought studies since it ptovides unique data from the earth's surface. Satellite data provide the possibility to identify the damaged vegetation in different types of uses and assess the severity of the damage. Using satellite data to monitor plant activities in a large area has many advantages compared to studies based on traditional methods and is currently a hot topic of pioneering research in the field of drought diagnosis. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the dynamics of vegetation cover and the effect of climate change on it in Eshtehard Karaj township. It is hoped that its results will be used by managers and planners of natural resources for sustainable management of vegetation.

This research was done in two parts. In the first part, the effect of drought on vegetation was investigated using Standardised Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and Enhanced vegetation index (EVI) , and in the next part, the vulnerability of vegetation was calculated using EVI index. In the second part, SPEI of 3, 6, 9 and 12 months were calculated in MATLAB software for 8 meteorological stations. It should be noted that SPEI has positive and negative values, in which the more negative values indicate the severity of drought. After calculating the SPEI index in the scale of 3, 6, 9 and 12 months for all 8 weather stations, drought intensity maps were obtained using the Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) method. Then, the ready-made EVI, the MOD13Q1 product of the MODIS sensor was used from the beginning of 2001 to the end of 2022. First, the average EVI index for the entire county of Eshtehard was extracted on a monthly basis and the month with the highest average EVI was selected as the target month. Pearson correlation and coefficient of determination (R2) were calculated between SPEI maps of 3, 6, 9 and 12 months and EVI of the selected month in Earth Trend Modeler (ETM) TerrSet software. Then the time scale of SPEI with the highest R2 was extracted. In the following, the intensity of EVI changes of the selected month was calculated in terms of SPEI changes (slope of changes) using linear analysis in ETM tool of TerrSet software. In the second part, the probability of vegetation vulnerability was calculated using the probability of vegetation vulnerability index (PVVI). For this reason, vegetation condition index (VCI) was first calculated using EVI index. After calculating the VCI index for the selected month of each year in the period from 2001 to 2022, this index was classified into five classes. Then the probability percentage of each class was calculated. Finally, the PVVI index was calculated by multiplying the weight of each class by the probability of its occurrence.

The monthly average EVI index showed that the months of April and October have the highest and lowest average value of EVI in the studied area, respectively. The month of April was chosen as the target month. According to the R2, the relationship between SPEI in different time scales and EVI of the chosen month, in 68.9% of the studied area, three-month SPEI has the strongest relationship with vegetation compared to 6, 9, 12-month SPEI. Most of the mountainous areas in the south of Eshtehard city are in this class. Also, parts of the northwest are included in this class. SPEI of six months in 17.3% of the study area has the strongest relationship with vegetation and SPEI ratio in other time scales. Examining the results of this section showed that the general spatial pattern of vegetation vulnerability probability obtained from the probability of vegetation vulnerability index (PVVI) is to an acceptable extent similar to the pattern of the intensity map of vegetation changes compared to drought. Therefore, the middle belt from west to east is in the probability of vegetation vulnerability map in the high and very high vulnerability class (26.4% and 14.4% of the study area, respectively). In general, 13% and 20.6% of the studied area are placed in the classes of low and very low probability of vulnerability, respectively. These areas are mostly concentrated in the northern belt from east to west, as well as south and southwest of the studied area.

The results of evaluating the probability of vegetation vulnerability in Eshtehard city showed that the general spatial pattern of the probability of vegetation vulnerability obtained from the PVVI index is to an acceptable extent similar to the pattern of the map of intensity of changes in vegetation compared to drought. Therefore, it can be said that the PVVI index can determine areas with high vulnerability of vegetation for better drought management.

The world faces a multitude of important problems and challenges, including rapid population growth, economic crises, improper natural resource management, climate change, increasing poverty, and hunger, which have led to an increase in the exploitation of natural resources. It is important to remember that any decision made in one part of a watershed can have consequences for other parts, ultimately affecting the watershed's overall performance. To determine the stability of a watershed, it is necessary to consider all aspects and factors involved, with all indicators in line with one another, and ensure that they overlap across all sections and layers. Over the past two decades, significant progress has been made in improving planning, implementation approaches, and designing appropriate policy frameworks for sustainable watershed health. While many watershed management projects have achieved positive outcomes, they often revert to their previous state without outgoing proposals for further watershed improvement.

This study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the performance and exit strategies of Chehelchai watershed projects. The method used in this study is provided by Zeleke (2014). According to this method, by combining periodical reports in the watershed area, the exit strategy framework, the quantity and quality of the achievements and the development stages of the watershed can be formulated. To score each of these indicators, group analysis is used in this method. The participants of this group discussion were village leaders and trustees, watershed management team, local people and experts working in the watershed. The indicators examined in this study included economic, social, ecological response, the commitment of the leaders of the two prominent villages of Duzein and Qalaqafeh, and the commitment of the communities. Each of these indicators has a specific number of sub-indices, which were used to score each index.

According to the results of the investigation of 6 indicators, the amount of stability of the study area was obtained and the strengths and weaknesses of the watershed were evaluated. The results of this research showed that this method has a good potential to evaluate the stability of the watershed and identify the exit strategy in watershed management due to the involvement of various indicators. This method has smoothed out problems such as lack of access to appropriate data, time-consuming, high cost, and lack of quantification of some parameters. The present study can be used as a model for evaluating other watershed areas in other regions of the country. The results showed improvement in both X and Y axis indicators for the Chehelchai watershed. The ecological index was favorable compared to the social and economic indices. To improve stability, more attention should be paid to the economic and social aspects. Strengthening the social index requires greater involvement of women in planning and implementation, addressing their needs and interests. Recruiting educated, successful, and motivated women for development groups and cooperatives, providing facilities for local businesses, and home business training can improve the social and economic indices. The commitment index of Dozein village leaders can be improved through increased follow-up and reporting requirements. For Qalaqafeh leaders, implementing regulations, monitoring, reporting, and community coordination can help. For communities, motivational activities, establishing and respecting regulations, supporting youth initiatives, and participating in associations are important. Using trusted community members to explain watershed goals and involving leaders through reports and site visits builds confidence between stakeholders, which is critical for sustainability. Any watershed effort lacking economic and social acceptance will not last.

To achieve acceptable sustainability, it is essential to evaluate the watershed based on a range of indicators, including ecosystem and socio-economic factors, as well as the commitment levels of leaders and communities. This evaluation process is critical to ensuring the protection of the watershed's natural resources and to providing a favorable living environment for both local residents and others who depend on the watershed. People rely on these resources for their livelihoods. However, one crucial aspect that has received little attention in the examination of watershed sustainability is the development of exit strategies from the basin. This oversight has resulted in many watershed management projects achieving positive results but failing to provide output proposals for further improving the watersheds. Thus, it is crucial to approach this category with greater sensitivity in both studies and implementation.

Locating and building small water projects in hot and dry areas of the country that are facing water shortage is of great importance. These projects are more popular among farmers than other water supply and storage projects due to simple construction technology, low study and implementation costs, public participation, simple operation and maintenance, and environmental effects. The use of new sciences, especially Remote Sensing techniques (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) helps planners to locate water supply and storage projects. Various studies have been conducted in the world in relation to location, analysis of factors affecting the location of water storage and supply plans using different criteria and using RS and GIS techniques. The aim of the present study is to identify and introduce water areas with the potential to create small water supply projects in the southeast of Bushehr province.

This research was conducted in Dayyer City in the southeast of Bushehr Province with an area of ​​2306 Km2 and a mean rainfall of 215 mm. In order to achieve the goal, first, nine flood-producing criteria including the slope, aspect of slope, river density, height, rainfall, runoff, distance from the river, land use and geological formations were considered. Then, using AHP method and weighting and prioritization of effective parameters and taking into account other environmental conditions and the overlap of maps, the final flood map of the city was prepared and classified. After calculating and estimating the degrees of importance, ArcGIS was used as a decision support system for future calculations. Also, Google earth and Arc Scene software have been used for better analysis and better understanding of the results in preparing the 3D space of the study area. After preparing the maps of the distribution and location of the wells and waterways network, the opinions of the relevant experts were also used. Also, other factors such as downstream land use, topography and access roads, drinking water consumption, livestock drinking consumption, the widest points in terms of the storage resource level and the ease of implementation of the structure were also considered as quality and management criteria.

The results showed that the region can be divided into five regions with very low, low, medium, high and very high in terms of flood vulnerability risk. Also, the results of flood zoning showed that the extension of the northern and northeastern elevations to the east of Dayyer City and the middle elevations of the city and its center have high flood potential. According to the area of the study area, 25.2% are in the high vulnerability class and 11.5% in the very high vulnerability class. In addition, the results showed that 25 places in the region are suitable for creating small water supply projects, which, if implemented, can be effective in collecting and supplying water and increasing the profitability of the region in addition to controlling seasonal floods.

Based on the results of this research, it is concluded that more than one third of the region (36.7%) has a high to very high risk of flooding, so these areas should be the focus of urban management planning. Also, 25 places in the region were suitable for creating small water supply projects, which need to be considered by regional managers and planners to reduce the effects of water shortage of the region. In addition, this research showed the good performance of GIS and AHP method in flood risk zoning and locating of small water supply projects in Dayyer City. Another noticeable point is that there are about 4217 hectares of land under dry wheat cultivation in the 23 proposed points of downstream, and currently the harvest of rainfed wheat is 1.3 tons per hectare on average. If appropriate water supply plans are implemented, the total harvest amount can reach about 16,000 tons per year. Therefore, making suitable water supply plans can result in an increase in production.

Drought and population increase are important factors that have caused more attention to ground water. Groundwater is one of the most valuable natural resources that affect human health, economic development and environmental diversity. Due to several inherent characteristics, these waters have become a very important and reliable source of water supply in developed and developing countries. Over the years, the importance of ground water due to the ever-increasing need for water has led to unscientific exploitation of ground water and the creation of water stress conditions. This alarming situation requires a cost-effective technique for proper assessment of groundwater resources and planning for the management of these resources. Geographic information system (GIS) and hierarchical analysis are samples of these tools. The purpose of this research is to prepare the ground water potential map using hierarchical analysis in the Ilam Dam watershed.

For this purpose, seven criteria of geology, slope, land use, soil, drainage density, lineament and precipitation were selected to identify the potential areas of ground water. The selection of these parameters is due to the effect that each of these factors has on the ground water. Geological features are important in controlling the infiltration of water into the ground due to the weathering, porosity and fracture that occur in them. On the other hand, increasing the slope of the land causes an increase in runoff. As drainage density increases, permeability decreases. Agricultural, forest and pasture land use can increase infiltration, but residential areas increase runoff due to impervious surfaces. Sandy and loamy soils have a high permeability coefficient, and finally, the higher the rainfall in the region, the higher the groundwater level. In order to prepare these layers, ArcGIS and remote sensing (RS) were used. First, by using the digital elevation model (DEM), the slope of the area, the drainage density in five classes were prepared. By using Landsat 8 satellite images of 2020 and in the environment of RS software, the land use of the region was created in five classes of agriculture, forest, pasture, bare soil and residential areas using a supervised classification method. Kappa coefficient confirmed 93% classification accuracy. The rainfall map of the watershed was also obtained from the synoptic and rain gauge station that existed in and around the basin. Finally, the geology map was prepared from the digital geological map in the GIS environment and the soil map from the Natural Resources Organization. After preparing these layers in the GIS, using the opinion of experts regarding the valuation of these criteria, each of these criteria was given grades from 1 to 9. Then, this valuation was transferred to Expert Choice software to determine the weight, and the weight of each criterion was obtained. Then, using these weights as well as raster layers created in the GIS environment and using the weighted overlay method, these layers were superimposed and the ground water potential map was obtained.

The results showed that geology criteria and land use have the most weight with 0.347 and 0.191, respectively, and soil and precipitation with 0.062 and 0.054 have the least importance for ground water potential. A big part of the watershed has medium to high potential for ground water. This part has a lot of forest and pasture cover, moderate slope (20-40 degrees) and high drainage density and high amount of precipitation, which is consistent with the results of Suri et al. (2016). A significant part of the basin has loam and sand soil, which have high permeability and can absorb water and increase the groundwater level. Kazhdomi formation has medium to high potential and Bangestan group formation has low potential.

In general, the final map has four potentials, including very low, low, medium to high, and very high, which respectively account for 0.98%, 41.8%, 55.9%, and 1.32% of the study area. Medium to high potential has the largest area. In general, the north of the watershed has medium to high potential, the south of the watershed has low potential, and a small part of the east of the study area has high potential of ground water. Preparing a map of ground water potential in watersheds can be a suitable strategy for exploiting these resources.

In arid and semi-arid regions, water is considered as the most important restrictive factor in drinking, industry and agriculture. In this regard, Zayandehroud River is a prominent example of human and environmental concerns in this climate. Due to the large area of the Zayandeh Roud Watershed and the difficulty of developing and implementing a comprehensive participatory management model for the entire watershed, one of the upstream sub-watersheds of the Zayandeh roud Dam was selected for this study based on the Eskandri sub-watershed. This sub-watershed is important because its outlet leads to Zayandeh roud Dam. In addition, this sub-watershed is one of the most important sources of agricultural water supply, drinkable water, and industry in the region and province of Isfahan. Therefore, this study aims to present management responses regarding the strategy of improving the water resources status of the Eskandari sub-watershed with a logical framework approach.

First, the water resources status of the Eskandari sub-watershed was investigated using the Falkenmark index (FI). This index classifies the regions according to the annual renewable per capita volume (RW) for the provision of water resources. Based on the annual renewable per capita volume per person (m3/person), the FI is asfollows: no stress (FI<1700), stress (1000-1700), water low water (500-1000) and absolute deficiency (FI>500). In the following, in order to achieve the goals of integrated watershed management, the logical framework approach was used. Therefore, by identifying the stakeholders and organization of workshops, a problem tree and objectives for the desired strategy was drawn and a logical framework matrix was prepared based on the tree of objectives. In this research, 30 members from stakeholders (random sampling method) were selected as the sample for the resident questionnaire. In other words, the main, sub-goals, achievements, and activities in order to solve the stated problem were extracted from the objectives tree and classified in the framework of the logical framework matrix. Also, the opinion of 28 experts was also considered as a large group decision-making to prioritize items. The expert group consisted of experts from the Departments of Natural Resources and Watershed Management, Environment, Regional Water, and also scientific members of universities of Yazd and Esfahan, and some members of the village council. In the following, for the assessment, prioritization, and feasibility of doing any management response, first, the criteria and indicators for measuring different responses related to the status of the water resources of the Eskandari sub-watershed were determined. Then, the prioritization and selection of responses were done using the questionnaire method and the Friedman's test.

The results of the research showed that the amount of renewable water per person is 637.60 m3. According to the classification provided by Falkenmark, this shows that the Eskandari sub-watershed is in the low water category. In the following, the results of the logical framework showed that the response of the development of optimal allocation plans for water consumption and regulation of water rights has been assigned the highest score according to the indicators and criteria considered. The responses to the strengthening of supervisory and executive mechanisms and modification of laws and regulations for issuance of exploitation licenses and also, preparation and compilation of integrated water resources management plan were the next priorities in terms of status improvement, respectively. In addition, the results of the significance test indicate a significant effect of managerial responses at five percent 0.05 (P=0.00).

This study aimed to provide optimal management responses regarding the strategy of improving the status of water resources based on the expectations and perceptions of the stakeholders. Therefore, due to the ineffectiveness of the solutions in recent years, the implementation of the integrated management program of the Eskandari sub-watershed through the logical framework approach and the participation of all stakeholders is suggested in order for the principled and sustainable exploitation of water resources. Also, reinforcement of regulatory laws is recommended in order to observe water rights and access more equity in exploitation. In addition, in order to reduce water scarcity and improve the condition of watershed, the policies of the water sector should be enforced in a larger framework and with internal and external cooperation.