Investigating the effect of increasing cultivated area and population growth on surface water resources of Mahabad using WEAP model

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• nezam mahmudi ¹
• Hirad Abghari ²

¹ Student of Urmia University, Faculty of Natural Resources

² Faculty of Natural Resources, Urmia University, IRAN.

10.22067/geoeh.2024.85119.1425

Abstract

Today, because of population growth, improvement of public health and welfare, Development of industry and growth of economic and agricultural activities, per head water consumption has greatly increased, and due to the deficiency of water and the imbalance between supply and demand, the management of water resources is very complex and important. The WEAP model evaluates the effect of changing the amount of water allocated to different consumers on the economic benefits of water consumption. This advantage is very important, especially when it is necessary to evaluate the long-term effects of changing allocation in water resources. That's why WEAP has been used in this research. The purpose of this research is to investigate the status of water resources in the Mahabad dam and the impact of increase in demand on meet the needs.In this research after collecting and completing the required information, the input file was created and the WEAP model was calibrated for a statistical period. Then Exploitation scenarios for the dam reservoir were developed and implemented, and the obtained results were evaluated. The simulated scenarios include the increase of cultivated area by 10, 20 and 30 percent and the population growth scenario. The results show that according to the reference scenario, Mahabad Dam will face a shortage of 18.8 million cubic meters and according to the scenarios S4, S3, S2, S1, it will face a shortage of 30, 41, 52 and 21 million cubic meters, respectively. The selected scenario is the reference scenario that provides better conditions for the reservoir in terms of reliability and supply of water demands and the maximum volume of water stored in the reservoir.

Keywords

• Keywords: Population growth scenario
• WEAP model
• Water resources management
• Mahabad Dam
• Cultivation area

Main Subjects

• Risk management

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