Mohammad Gholami; Majid Kazemzadeh
Abstract
The inappropriate utilization of water resources has led to water shortages and numerous challenges for humanity. Assessing water scarcity can significantly contribute to sustainable water resource management. The Water Poverty Index (WPI), as a composite tool, assesses the factors affecting the water ...
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The inappropriate utilization of water resources has led to water shortages and numerous challenges for humanity. Assessing water scarcity can significantly contribute to sustainable water resource management. The Water Poverty Index (WPI), as a composite tool, assesses the factors affecting the water condition in a specific area using five critical criteria: Resources, Access, Capacity, Use, and Environment. in the present study, Razavi Khorasan province was divided into 22 study areas, then the water poverty index was used to assess the water scarcity in each of them. WPI results revealed that the Darghz study area scored 50.63, indicating the best water condition, while the Kashmir study area, Red Mountain, and Khalilabad had the worst water conditions, scoring 20/20 compared to other regions. The average of WPI for the entire province was 34.41, indicating an unfavorable state of water scarcity in this region. The average values for the five criteria—resources, access, capacity, consumption, and environment—across the entire province were 19.41, 36.35, 31.23, 38.06, and 47.05, respectively, that according to Use and Resource criteria, water utilization in this province exceeds available water resources by a factor of 1.96. According to this, overexploitation of water resources, particularly in the agricultural sector, and neglecting sustainable development and resilience thresholds of natural ecosystems were identified as significant management strategic mistakes contributing to water scarcity in this province. Therefore, make a balance between water utilization and available resources, allocating a portion of water for the natural ecosystems requirements, and reducing economic reliance on agriculture, can serves as a roadmap for water resources management to effective water resource management and prevent further deterioration of the current situation.
Sima Pourhashemi; mehdi boroghani; abolghasem Amirahmadi; MohamadAli Zanganeh Asadi; Mahdi Salhi
Abstract
Due to the drought and land use changes in recent years, dust storm phenomenon in Iran has increased. The purpose of this research is to identify and prioritize dust source areas using bivariate models (probability model of event weight and frequency ratio model) in R software environment and determine ...
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Due to the drought and land use changes in recent years, dust storm phenomenon in Iran has increased. The purpose of this research is to identify and prioritize dust source areas using bivariate models (probability model of event weight and frequency ratio model) in R software environment and determine the importance of each of the environmental factors affecting it in Khorasan Razavi province. To this porpuse, 65 dust extraction points were identified in the study area and a dust distribution map was prepared. Then maps of each of the factors influencing the occurrence of dust including soil maps, lithology, slope, vegetation index (NDVI), distance from the river, geomorphology and land use were prepared. Using the frequency and event weighting models, the weight of each effective factor and the relationship between each of the factors and the points of dust source were determined and, finally, priority maps of the dust source areas were prepared for the case study. Models were evaluated using the ROC curve. According to the results of both models, geomorphology units, land use and slope have the most effect on the occurrence of dust in the region, and both models have a frequency ratio and event weight with a sub-curve of 0.818 and 0.825, respectively. They accept.
