Special AHS Tucson Chapter Meeting
Tuesday, June 30, 2015 – Social Half Hour @ 6:00 PM, Talk @ 6:30 PM
The challenge of reliable water management in arid lands of Iran is magnified by the country's geography, climate and hydrology. Rainfall has uneven temporal and spatial variations, with periods of droughts interspersed with some heavy rainfall events. Iran receives about 240 mm precipitation per year. That is one third of the world and one fourth of
Asia’s mean annual precipitation. It ranges from 51 mm in the Central Desert to 2000 mm in the north. Over 70% of the total precipitation is counted as evapotranspiration. Almost 94% of readily available water is used for agriculture and groundwater supplies, about 60% of the annual consumption of water. Iran devised a water supply system, called Qanat, to utilize groundwater in arid and semi-arid lands where there is no permanent and reliable water on the surface. Qanat is a system of water supply consisting of an underground tunnel connected to the surface by a series of shafts which uses gravity to bring water from the water table to the surface. Qanat have several significant advantages compared to conventional water utilization techniques like wells. It provides a sustainable water resource during dry months of the year. Also, it exploits groundwater as a renewable resource with a controlled rate of flow. Since the major channels in a
Qanat system are located underground, the rate of water loss from seepage and evaporation is minimal. There is no need to pump water because the Qanat system is fed by gravity. The recharge water in the Qanat system is infiltrated naturally through the groundwater aquifer so it is cold with little pollution. Last but not least, Qanat has a main role in the regional culture which provides historical guidance for water governance, management and legislation. In accordance with global modernization, Iran started developing various discipline plans. Development of agriculture as the main plan was based on improvement of water utilization. Dam construction was necessarily because of mountainous catchments and unreliable temporal and spatial precipitation. Several big dams were constructed for hydropower and irrigation. However, diverting water from its natural channels created major problems like sediment accumulation and land and biodiversity degradation. In recent decades, adaption of sustainable development policy based on a balance between traditional and modern approaches has been of interest.
Sattar Chavoshi
Research Associate, Soil Conservation and Watershed Research Institute of Iran, and
Adjunct Research Fellow, University of South Australia
Sattar Chavoshi has over 22 years’ experience in academia as a consultant and research scientist, both in urban and rural hydrology in Iran, Malaysia, Japan and Australia. His career has covered the full range of environmental management from hydrology and water resources to watershed management, including all aspects of advanced techniques like soft computing (particularly fuzzy logic), artificial neural network and genetic algorithm, GIS and RS. As a research associate at the SA Water Centre for Water Management and Reuse, University of South Australia, he works on the national project of water sensitive urban design (WSUD). He was the head of Hydrology and Water Resources Unit at the
Watershed Research Department in the Isfahan Research Centre for Agriculture and Natural Resources over 10 years. He runs several research projects mainly on hydrology modeling. He has published over 100 journal and conference papers and governmental reports.
Hamideh Nouri
Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of South Australia
Hamideh Nouri has over fifteen years’ experience in industry and academia as a consultant and research scientist, both in urban environments and agriculture in Australia and overseas. She has been the principal contributor to the writing of
13 major funding proposals, 8 were successful and 5 are in-review. She has more than 26 peer review papers. Her present position as a postdoctoral research associate is supported by funds from South Australian Water Authority (SA
Water) and Centre for Water Management and Reuse. Her research covers the broad range of sustainable management of water and soil resources and applications of remote sensing & GIS in eco-hydrology, covering all aspects of engineering, management and strategic analysis. Her recent work has addressed the water and soil management of the
Adelaide parklands associated with wastewater irrigation. The outcomes of this research were published in high impact journals and frequently have been referred to in the media.