Iran-Water Resources Research

Iran-Water Resources Research

Developing the Drought Index in Natural and Engineering Sub-basins (Case Study: Zayandehrood Basin)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Mehrdad Khoshoei 1
Hamid Reza Safavi 2
1 Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran.
2 Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran.
10.22034/iwrr.2023.173579
Abstract
Due to the climate change, we nowadays are witnessing extreme water resources events such as droughts and floods in all parts of the world. Historically, dams are used for water storage, electricity production, and agricultural and industrial uses, which, along their advantages, causes environmental damage. Dams divide basins into engineering and natural basins, and so one of the goals of this research is to explain the differences and performance of these two types of basins in terms of water resources and drought indicators. To this end, this research reviewed and evaluated the existing indicators and provide an integrated index including the influencing factors of drought. Due to the strategic location of the Zayanderood basin in the central plateau of Iran, this basin is selected for the case study. The imbalance between resources and consumption, especially in recent years, is considered as the main factor aggravating drought. Integrated drought index includes various factors in terms of meteorological and hydrological factors, and the index is validated using agricultural factors and variables. The results showed that in natural watersheds, a comprehensive estimate of the drought situation can be obtained by using changes in rainfall or evaporation, although drought estimation using the bivariate index shows better results and performance. In the engineering basins, the bivariate index has a better performance than the indices based solely on rainfall or evaporation and creates a greater correlation with the validation index based on the agricultural drought index.
Keywords
Drought
Index
Natural and Engineering Basins
Entropy

Subjects

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  • Receive Date 18 January 2023
  • Revise Date 11 June 2023
  • Accept Date 27 June 2023