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Meeting agricultural and environmental water demand in endorheic irrigated river basins: A simulation-optimization approach applied to the Urmia Lake basin in Iran

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  • Dehghanipour, Amir Hossein
  • Schoups, Gerrit
  • Zahabiyoun, Bagher
  • Babazadeh, Hossein

Abstract

Competition for water between agriculture and the environment is a growing problem in irrigated regions across the globe, especially in endorheic basins with downstream freshwater lakes impacted by upstream irrigation withdrawals. This study presents and applies a novel simulation-optimization (SO) approach for identifying water management strategies in such settings. Our approach combines three key features for increased exploration of strategies. First, minimum environmental flow requirements are treated as a decision variable in the optimization model, yielding more flexibility than existing approaches that either treat it as a precomputed constraint or as an objective to be maximized. Second, conjunctive use is included as a management option by using dynamically coupled surface water (WEAP) and groundwater (MODFLOW) simulation models. Third, multi-objective optimization is used to yield entire Pareto sets of water management strategies that trade off between meeting environmental and agricultural water demand. The methodology is applied to the irrigated Miyandoab Plain, located upstream of endorheic Lake Urmia in Northwestern Iran. Results identify multiple strategies, i.e., combinations of minimum environmental flow requirements, deficit irrigation, and crop selection, that simultaneously increase environmental flow (up to 16 %) and agricultural profit (up to 24 %) compared to historical conditions. Results further show that significant temporary drops in agricultural profit occur during droughts when long-term profit is maximized, but that this can be avoided by increasing groundwater pumping capacity and temporarily reducing the lake’s minimum environmental flow requirements. Such a strategy is feasible during moderate droughts when resulting declines in groundwater and lake water levels fully recover after each drought. Overall, these results demonstrate the usefulness and flexibility of the methodology in identifying a range of potential water management strategies in complex irrigated endorheic basins like the Lake Urmia basin.

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  • Dehghanipour, Amir Hossein & Schoups, Gerrit & Zahabiyoun, Bagher & Babazadeh, Hossein, 2020. "Meeting agricultural and environmental water demand in endorheic irrigated river basins: A simulation-optimization approach applied to the Urmia Lake basin in Iran," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:241:y:2020:i:c:s0378377420309306
    DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106353
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ajay Singh & Sudhindra Panda, 2013. "Optimization and Simulation Modelling for Managing the Problems of Water Resources," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(9), pages 3421-3431, July.
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    4. Dehghanipour, Amir Hossein & Zahabiyoun, Bagher & Schoups, Gerrit & Babazadeh, Hossein, 2019. "A WEAP-MODFLOW surface water-groundwater model for the irrigated Miyandoab plain, Urmia lake basin, Iran: Multi-objective calibration and quantification of historical drought impacts," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 1-1.
    5. Ahmadzadeh, Hojat & Morid, Saeed & Delavar, Majid & Srinivasan, Raghavan, 2016. "Using the SWAT model to assess the impacts of changing irrigation from surface to pressurized systems on water productivity and water saving in the Zarrineh Rud catchment," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 15-28.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Hua Xing & Shuhong Mo & Xiaoyan Liang & Ying Li, 2021. "Water Resources Allocation Based on Complex Adaptive System Theory in the Inland River Irrigation District," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-19, July.
    3. Akbari, Fatemeh & Shourian, Mojtaba & Moridi, Ali, 2022. "Assessment of the climate change impacts on the watershed-scale optimal crop pattern using a surface-groundwater interaction hydro-agronomic model," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).

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