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Compounding effects of human activities and climatic changes on surface water availability in Iran

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Abstract

By combining long-term ground-based data on water withdrawal with climate model projections, this study quantifies the compounding effects of human activities and climate change on surface water availability in Iran over the twenty-first century. Our findings show that increasing water withdrawal in Iran, due to population growth and increased agricultural activities, has been the main source of historical water stress. Increased levels of water stress across Iran are expected to continue or even worsen over the next decades due to projected variability and change in precipitation combined with heightened water withdrawals due to increasing population and socio-economic activities. The greatest rate of decreased water storage is expected in the Urmia Basin, northwest of Iran, (varying from ~ − 8.3 mm/year in 2010–2039 to ~ − 61.6 mm/year in 2070–2099 compared with an observed rate of 4 mm/year in 1976–2005). Human activities, however, strongly dominate the effects of precipitation variability and change. Major shifts toward sustainable land and water management are needed to reduce the impacts of water scarcity in the future, particularly in Iran’s heavily stressed basins like Urmia Basin, which feeds the shrinking Lake Urmia.

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Acknowledgement

This study was not supported by any funding agency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

    Samaneh Ashraf, Amir AghaKouchak, Hamed R. Moftakhari, Hassan Anjileli, Omid Mazdiyasni, Aneseh Alborzi & Iman Mallakpour

  2. Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

    Samaneh Ashraf & Mohammad Mousavi Baygi

  3. Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

    Ali Nazemi

  4. Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA

    Ali Mirchi

  5. Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA

    Mojtaba Sadegh

  6. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

    Hamed R. Moftakhari

  7. Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, Canada

    Elmira Hassanzadeh

  8. Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Chi-Yuan Miao

  9. Imperial College London, Kensington, London, UK

    Kaveh Madani

  10. Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Kaveh Madani

  11. Rahbord Danesh Pooya Institute, Tehran, Iran

    Davood Reza Arab

  12. City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Hamid Norouzi

  13. Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ, USA

    Marzi Azarderakhsh

  14. University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

    Mohammad J. Tourian

  15. University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Ali Mehran

  16. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Alireza Farahmand

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  1. Samaneh Ashraf
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  2. Amir AghaKouchak
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  3. Ali Nazemi
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Correspondence to Amir AghaKouchak.

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Ashraf, S., AghaKouchak, A., Nazemi, A. et al. Compounding effects of human activities and climatic changes on surface water availability in Iran. Climatic Change 152, 379–391 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-018-2336-6

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