3.1 Representative Case Study Region
The Lower Zab River (also known as Little Zab River and Lesser Zab River) is one of the main tributaries of the Tigris River, and is situated with its tributaries between latitudes 36°50′ N and 35°20′ N, and longitudes 43°25′ E and 45°50′ E (Mohammed and Scholz
2016); see also Online Resource
1.1. The Lower Zab River originates from the Zagros Mountains in Iran, and flows about 370 km south-east and south-west through north-western Iran and northern Iraq before joining the Tigris near Fatha city, which is located about 220 km north of Baghdad (Mohammed et al.
2017), with a total length of approximately 302 km and about 80 km south of the Greater Zab River.
There are a number of tributaries contributing to the river discharge such as the Banah and Qazlaga. The catchment area of the Lower Zab Basin (LZRB) and its tributaries is approximately 19,254 km
2 with nearly 76% of the basin located in Iraq. The mean annual storage of the Lower Zab at Dokan and at the downstream station of Altun Kupri-Goma is about 6 billion cubic meters (BCM) and 7.8 BCM in this order. The corresponding mean contribution to the Tigris of 191 m
3/s and 249 m
3/s for the two stations, respectively (Mohammed et al.
2017).
Online Resource
1.2 indicates the average annual flow variability of the river Zab, which is characterised by regular oscillation of dry and wet periods at both gauging stations (USGS
2010). The mean, maximum and minimum discharges of the Lower Zab are 227, 3420 and 6 m
3/s, respectively (Al-Ansari et al.
2014; Mohammed et al.
2017). The Lower Zab crosses rather diverse ecological and climatic zones. Annual P along the river course decreases from more than 1000 in the Iranian Zagros to less than 200 mm at the confluence with the river Tigris. Moreover, mean temperatures follow the same gradient. The mountain valleys are usually subjected to colder winters than the corresponding foothill areas. However, summers in the latter are usually hotter (NOAA
2009).
Dokan is the main dam that has been constructed in the Iraqi portion of the LZRB, whereas Iran is recently constructing one dam with two others in the planning phase. The Dokan, which is a multi-purpose arch dam, was constructed between 1957 and 1961 upstream from Dokan town with a maximum capacity of approximately 6970 million cubic meters (MCM), crest height of 116 m above the river bed (516 m) and a length of 360 m. The main dam functions are to control the discharge of the Lower Zab, store water for irrigation and to provide hydroelectric power.
3.2 Climate Forecasting System Reanalysis Data
Gathering representative weather data for basin-scale hydrological simulations might be challenging and take a lot of time. This is because the land-based meteorological stations do not usually adequately cover the climate observed over a basin for many reasons such as that they might be located far from the area of interest and are associated with missing data, which holds true for the case study area.
Accordingly, this research introduces a procedure for utilising the CFSR global methodological dataset (Saha et al.
2010) to gain historical meteorological data and investigate its applicability for hydrologic alteration, drought severity assessment and CC studies. The CFSR data are based on a dataset created by the National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) as a part of a climate forecast system (Chen and Emily
2014; Dile and Srinivasan
2014; Saha et al.
2014).
The CFSR dataset supersedes the previous National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) reanalysis dataset that has been immensely utilised in previous down-scaling research (e.g., Michelangeli et al. (
2009) and Maurer et al. (
2010)). Recent research in water resources (Srinivasan
2014; Adeloye et al.
2016; Soundharajan et al.
2016; Mohammed and Scholz
2017) dependent on the CFSR dataset. For example, Mohammed and Scholz (
2017) confirmed the CFSR data reliability by applying the dataset to evaluate the potential effect of evapotranspiration formulations at different elevations and climatic conditions on the RDI index. The CFSR dataset covers the period from 1979 to 2014 with a spatial resolution of 0.5° × 0.5° (Soundharajan et al.
2016). Concerning data reliability in watershed-scale modelling, Fuka et al. (
2013) confirmed that applying the CFSR data as input to the hydrological model produces streamflow, which are as accurate as or even better than models derived through popular meteorological stations, particularly in the case that the stations are located greater than 10 km from the area of interest.
Daily meteorological data from 30 stations were available for the period between 1979/80 and 2013/14. Daily streamflow data were accessible for Dokan station for the duration of 82 years.
ArcGIS 10.3 has been used for meteorological station location projections, Thiessen network computations, spatial analysis of the meteorological data and river basin delineation using the world borders, Iraqi Shapefiles and Lower Zab River basin files, which have been downloaded from Thematic Mapping (
2009), the database of Global Administrative Areas (GADM
2012), the Global and Land Cover Facility (GLCF
2015), which is a centre for land cover science with a concentrate on study using remotely sensed satellite data and products to access land cover change for regional to universal systems, respectively.
Statistical analyses for the daily data, including monthly and annual average values, corrections and gap filling were performed using the Statistical Program for Social Sciences (SPSS) 20. Online Resource
1.3 shows the categories of the meteorological stations for the studied basin. Online Resources
1.4 and
1.5 reveal both the parametric and non-parametric tests for the meteorological variables. The estimation of PET and RDI was accomplished with a specialised software package named DrinC (Tigkas et al.
2015).
In order to achieve an accurate estimation of the spatial distribution of rainfall, it is necessary to use interpolation methods. The weighing mean method was considered as the most important one for engineering praxis (Fiedler
2003). This method assigns weights at each gauging station in proportion to the basin area, which is closest to that station.
To set up the method, the following steps have been accomplished using ArcGIS 10.3. The creation of a shapefile of the named watershed polygons as a function of the land cover image has been achieved by downloading the relevant information from GLCF (
2015)
This step was followed by creation of two shapefiles. The first one is the basin border polygon, while the second one is the point shapefile that represents meteorological stations. Each representative point involved a value of the long-term P.
A Thiessen network (Online Resource
1.6) was created to estimate the area of each station polygon (a
i). This has been achieved depending on the following: (a) Connecting the adjacent stations with lines; (b) Constructing perpendicular bisectors of each line, and (c) The bisectors are extended and applied to form the polygon around each station. Online Resource
1.7 lists the station addresses with corresponding average P and the sub-area sizes.
Rainfall values for each gauging station (P
i) are multiplied by the area of each polygon (a
i). The next step required the computation of the average values of the P
av by summing up all values obtained from the previous step and dividing the number by the total basin area according to equation (
1).
$$ {\mathrm{P}}_{\mathrm{a}\mathrm{v}}=\frac{{\displaystyle {\sum}_{\mathrm{i}=1}^{\mathrm{n}}}{\mathrm{a}}_{\mathrm{i}}\times {\mathrm{P}}_{\mathrm{i}}}{{\displaystyle {\sum}_{\mathrm{i}=1}^{\mathrm{n}}}{\mathrm{a}}_{\mathrm{i}}} $$
(1)
where P
av is the average value of the basin P (mm), P
i is the average value of the station polygon P (mm) and a
i is the meteorological station area. Stations are distributed both inside and outside the polygons (Online Resource
1.6). Only one P value per station has been provided to keep the procedure simple. To evaluate the deviation of the natural flow regime that resulted from CC and drought phenomena linked to the anthropogenic interventions, the Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration software version7.1 (Richter et al.
1998; The Nature Conservancy
2009) has been utilised.
The daily Lower Zab River flow rate ranged from 1931 to 2013 and was measured at the Iraqi side of the river. The entire records were separated into two prime categories: natural flow period and changed flow period. The first hydrological alteration has occurred in the water year 1965, which was considered as a reference water year. Accordingly, the period between 1931 and 1964 represent the pre-regulated period. However, the period that covers the hydrologic years between 1965 and 2013, which was considered as the post-regulated period.
The time intervals selected depended on the degree of anthropogenic interventions such as increasing water requirements and reservoir constructions in addition to the impact of CC. The first period between 1965 and 2013 represents the entire period since the first reservoir was constructed. The period between 1979 and 2014 was characterised by variation in climate involving two sub-periods (1979–1987 and 1998–2008). The developed methodology enhanced understanding of the separate elements of the hydrologic variations in the streamflow. Furthermore, Online Resource
1.8 shows the normal P years during the studied period.