Assessing the impact of climate variability and human activities on the drawdown of Lake Urmia (Iran)

using SWAT-LU

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Ashkan Farrokhnia1 , Saeed Morid1, Majid Delavar1 and Karim Abbaspour3

1. Tarbiat Modares University. Water Research Institute.2. Tarbiat Modares University.

3. Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Eawag.

The 2017 SWAT Conference & Workshops 28 to 30 June, 2017

Warsaw, Poland

Ashkan Farrokhnia

Lake Urmia Basin

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1274.10

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1280.0

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wat

er el

evat

ion-

m

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Persian Gulf

Total Area of 52000 km2

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Salt storm

Efforts to Restore Lake Urmia

An integrated plan to save the lake was drawn bystakeholders, which was facilitated by theUNDP/GEF/DOE Conservation of IranianWetlands Project (CIWP). With the cooperation ofthe LU provinces, the Integrated ManagementPlan for Lake Urmia Basin (IMPLUB) wasdeveloped. The plan helps provincial and nationalagencies address the current critical ecologicalstate of the lake, which is also required by the 4th

National Development Plan. The most importantagreement in this plan is to allocate 3100 MCM ofwater per year to the lake.

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Main questions for the lake restoration

• What are the causes for the lake’s drawdown?

• What is the water accounting of the basin?

• What can be the impacts of new agriculturalpolicies on restoration of lake?

• etc5

Conceptual framework for Integrated modeling of Lake Urmia Basin

Basin and field scale

model

Management Scenarios:

Changing irrigation system

Changing cropping pattern

New rule curves

...

New management questions?

Water accountingWA+

Outflows to Lake Urmia

Lake and rivers management:

Partial restoration of lake

Transferring the rivers

New rule curve

Hydrodynamic and water budget

models

Lake’s BasinLake’s Bed

Mike21SWAT-LU

Water Accounting WA+, Resource Report

Karim et al., 2013

The main advantages

Real Water Saving

Distinction between withdrawal and demolition

Realistic evaluation of technologies on water saving

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Dimensions of Lake Urmia

140 Km length 20-50 Km width

Maximum 20 meters depthAverage 6 meters depth

Urmia Lake water level variation

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Some the features added to SWAT for SWAT-LU

- Simulation of losses between the first and second boundaries

rtday.f

- Updating of wet/dry parts of the lake’s bed

urmia.f, simulate.f

- Evaporation from the lake as an hyper saline lake (ppm=400mg/lit)

- Change in the volume-area relation res.f

- Updating land use resetlu.f

- Irrigation efficiency irrsub.f ،irr_res.f ،irr_rch.f ،subbasin.f, gwmod.f

- Change in spatial estimation of rainfall and temperature

snom.f ،clicon.f و readsub.f

The question of the present presenation

• What are the causes for the lake’s drawdown?• i.e. role of humand activites and climate

variability?

• How is the water accounting of the basin?

• What can be the impacts of new agriculturalpolicies on restoration of lake?

• etc 12

Simulation Framework to distinguish human activities and climate variability impacts on Lake Urmia drawdown

• 1st attempt) Running SWAT-LU using recorded temperature and rainfall data and updating land use

• 2nd attempt) Running SWAT-LU using fixed historical land use (1988) and recorded temperature and rainfall data

• 3rd attempt) Running SWAT-LU using de-terended temperature and rainfall data and updating land use

• 1st Run – 2nd Run = Human Impact• 1st Run – 3rd Run = Climate variability Impact

Simulation Framework to distinguish human activities and climate variability impacts on Lake Urmia drawdown

∆𝑉𝑉𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇=∆𝑉𝑉𝐶𝐶𝑇𝑇𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑙𝑙 + ∆𝑉𝑉𝐻𝐻𝑢𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑇𝑇𝑢𝑢 + ∆𝑉𝑉(𝐶𝐶𝑇𝑇𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑙𝑙,𝐻𝐻𝑢𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑇𝑇𝑢𝑢)

• Modeling Set up, calibration and validation

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کاربری اراضی 1987

Producing Land Use Map the basin 1988 and 2007, Landsat images

20071988

Rainfed

Irrigated lands

OrchardsRainfed 19%Irrigated lands 10%Orchards 270%

Major data/information and discretization of the basin and HRUs

112 subbasins 3114 HRUs

- DEM (30 meter)- Soil map (FAO)- 51 discharge stations- 11 Temp. gauging stations- 25 Rain gauge stations - Cal. and val. period 1986 to 2009- SWAT-CUP with parallel processing module

- 4 major crops and respected managements

- 6 major dams

Irrigation networks

Dams

Lake’s basimetry

Calibration/validation of river flows

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0

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Q (c

ms)

‹ w⁄ ü$‚w⁄#

‹ wŒ∙ z ö•$ô‡ù „flÍùü#

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140

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Q (c

ms)

‹ w⁄ ü$‚w⁄#

ùwÎfi‡$Ëwè Èãj#

R2 and Nash aregreater than 0.7 inthe main stations

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-300

-250

-200

-150

-100

-50

0

50

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150

200

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

‘ôw

æ⁄ x

j ª

w∆Éù

v$

mm

#

‹ w⁄ ü$‚w⁄#

GRACESWAT-LU

Calibration/validation of actual evapotranspiration and change in groundwater

GW : GRACE satellite VS SWAT-LU

0

100

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ûÎò{

É-

«ûæ

É$

mm

#

x j È◊⁄ öfl• ‘ ö⁄SWAT-LU

0

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ûÎò{

É-

«ûæ

É$

mm

#

x j È◊⁄ öfl• ‘ ö⁄SWAT-LU

0

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600

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1000

ÿöfl“ y Ε „åfi∙ Í „ã∙“

ûÎò{

É-

«ûæ

É$

mm

#

‘ ∙ Æî ⁄

x j È◊⁄ öfl• ‘ ö⁄SWAT-LU

میاندوآب

ارومیھ

تبریز

Wheat Applet Alfalfa Tomato

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0

5

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25

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40

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1989

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„èwÍù

ô Ÿåì

$y

æœ⁄û

Ñ⁄ ôù

wÎ◊Î⁄

#

‹ w⁄ ü$‚w⁄#

Ëv ‚ö‰w™⁄Ëüw• „Î{©

Validation Calibration

R2=0.99 NS=0.98 R2=0.99 NS=0.99

Calibration/validation of Lake Urmia’s level using SWAT-LU

کاربری اراضی 1987

1988

Producing Land Use Map the basin 1988 and 2007

2007

Rainfed

Irrigated lands

Orchards

Land use change including construction of the dams representing the role human activities of the basin

1988

کاربری اراضی 1987

2007

Dams

Trend analysis of temperature

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Significant positive trend

1980-2009Mann-KendalSpearman

Positive trend but not significant

#

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Trend analysis of rainfall

Significant negative trend

Negative trend but not significant

#

1980-2009Mann-KendalSpearman

No trend#

Deternded time series of temperature and rainfall after the lake’s drawdown (1995 onward)

• Problem: Getting different time series using different deternding methods (linear/average differences) and turning points (1995, 1998, 2002) 25

100

200

300

400

500

600

ßùwz

$m

m#

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Simulation of Lake Urmia’s level using different deterndig methods and turning points

Observed period Simulated period

?• 6 different simulated

time series with reset todeternding method andturning points

Lake Van vs Lake Urmia

• Van Lake• (Turkey)

• Urmia Lake• (Iran)

Lake Van’s level vs Lake Urmia level

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VanUrmia

R2= 0.81 before1996 R2= 0.41 after1996

Correlation between lake’slevels of Van and Urmiausing different methodsand turning points

R2 Turning point Deternding method

Data type Period

0.81 -- -- Observed 1966-1987

0.41 -- -- Observed 1988-2009

0.54 1996 Linear Simulated 1988-20090.17 1996 Average Simulated 1988-2009

0.41 1999 Linear Simulated 1988-2009

0.52 1999 Average Simulated 1988-2009

0.82 2002 Linear Simulated 1988-2009

0.76 2002 Average Simulated 1988-2009

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Simulation of Lake Urmia’s level using different deterndig methods

Recorded level

Simulated level withremoving climate andanthropogenic impacts

Observation Simulation

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Simulated inflows to Lake Urmia under different climate and anthropogenic impacts based on the average differences

deternding method and 2002 turning point

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Scenario

Simulation Sc.1988-20091999-2009

Land use

Climatedata

Inflows to lake

(BCM)

Change () comparing with base condition

(BCM)

Inflows to lake(BCM)

Change () comparing with base condition

(BCM)

Base)𝑄𝑄(𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼)𝐵𝐵(VariableObserved 4.01---2.11---

Rem. Human I. )𝑄𝑄(𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼)𝐻𝐻(

1987 fixedObserved 4.68-0.67

(%49.3)3.10-0.99(%41.8)

Rem. Climate I.)𝑄𝑄(𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼)𝐶𝐶(VariableDeternded 4.600.59

(%43.4)3.30-19.1(%50.2)

Rem. both)𝑄𝑄(𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼)(

1987 fixed

Deternded 5.37-1.36(%100)4.48-2.37

(%100)

Interaction of human & Climae)𝑄𝑄(𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼)𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐻𝐻(---0.10-

(%7.3)----0.19(%8.0)

Relative impacts of anthropogenic and climate variability impacts on Lake Urmia drawdown

Conclusion and remarks

• The results showed that inspite of many subjective analysesthat introduce human activities (miss management as themain resean for the drawdown of hLake Urmia; climateviability of the basin has also seriously had affected the lake.

• Having in mind the finding, face us with a new hot questionwhich is:

• Can be bring back the lake to its historical level or it isessential to accept this reality and work on partial restorationof the lake. As it was also considered in restoration of AralSea (Central Asia) and Mono lake (California).

• SWAT-LU can be accounted as a suitable tool for supportingthe related policies and decisions to restore the lake. 33

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