---

 

---

Underground water is an important source for drinking and agriculture in the worlds. Due to Extraction of these resources and too frequent droughts in recent years the level of resources has been a significant drop. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of drought on groundwater levels and estimate the time lag of drought in Plain of Darab. To do this, using rainfall data of Darb ghale darab Station and climate index SPI was extracted conditions of drought. And trend by using the Mann - Kendall non-parametric test was analysis. Then hydrograph of ground water level from 71 to 89 years by using the arithmetic mean of 42 wells was plotted. Finally, by using Mann - Kendall test, trend of 19-year ground water level data of the study area was given analysis. The results indicate that the region Experience of drought during this time and rainfall has been decreased. Analysis of 42 wells showed that the decline in groundwater levels in 40 wells has increased and two other wells, one of them had fixed trend, and other has been reduced in the drop rate. And results of correlation in precipitation data and drop in Groundwater Level showed that the decline in groundwater levels than precipitation occurs with 5 months lag.

---

Precipitation affects quantity and quality of water resources and agricultural production. Therefore, the estimation and analysis of its spatial-temporal variations is of great importance. In many regions of Iran, limited spatial-temporal information is available due to sparse distribution of monitoring stations and short observational records. On the other hand, dependency of rain-fed and irrigated production systems on precipitation increases the importance of the analysis of spatiotemporal variations of this weather variable. One way to address this limitation is to use regional/global gridded datasets. In this study, monthly precipitation data were obtained from the CRU dataset (developed principally by the UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the US Department of Energy) and used to investigate temporal trends in annual, seasonal and monthly precipitations in 675 grid cells (0.5°×0.5°) across Iran over two periods, 1957-1986 and 1987-2016. The results of the previous studies showed that the CRU gridded dataset offers quality data in Iran, especially for trend analysis. Also, the accuracy of the CRU dataset was validated in 14 selected stations regarding monthly precipitations and temporal trends over two different periods, pre-1987 and post-1987. The significance of temporal trends was assessed using a modified version of the rank-based nonparametric Mann-Kendall (MK) test. Trend magnitudes (i.e. slope) were estimated with the Theil-Sen approach and the Trend Free Pre-whitening (TFPW) procedure was applied to remove the effect of serial correlation. The results confirm the acceptable accuracy of the CRU dataset for trend analysis purposes, especially over the last three decades, except in the northern strip of the country (RMSE=10.71mm, R²=0.84). Two 30-year periods (1957-1986 and 1987-2016) were compared in terms of spatial patterns and temporal trends. Annual precipitation over the last three decades (1987-2016) has decreased as compare to the previous 30-year period (1957-1986) in most parts of the country. Over the last three decades, around 42% and 50% of the country’s total area experienced significant and insignificant decreasing trends in annual precipitation, respectively. National average annual precipitation has decreased by 15.78 mm/decade over the same period. Three important regions regarding agricultural production experienced the most significant reductions in annual precipitation: (1) Ardebil, East Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Ilam, Lorestan, Zanjan, Hamadan, and parts of West Azerbaijan, Markazi and Gilan (in the west and northwest), (2) Sistan and Baluchestan, Kerman, and southern parts of South Khorasan (in the south and south east), and (3) North Khorasan, northern parts of Razavi Khorasan and east of Golestan (in the east and north east). Reduced annual precipitation was mainly attributed to the reduction in seasonal precipitations in winter and spring, which have critical role in agricultural production and domestic water supply. Temporal trends were also analysed at the monthly scale. January, February, March and December revealed the largest number of grid cells with significant decreasing trends over 1987-2016 while November is the only month with significant number of grid cells experiencing significant increasing trends. The results of this study show that the monthly time series of the CRU TS 4.01 dataset, which has an almost complete spatial and temporal coverage in Iran over the last 60 years, are promising alternatives to weather station observations especially in data-scarce regions of Iran. Analysis of variations and the seasonal and monthly scales help understand the recent climate change and target the most crucial features of it when it comes to formulating adaptation strategies.

---

Climate change and low water use efficiency are the main reasons for reducing the water entering the Urmia Lake. Therefore, water use management via irrigation scheduling can be an effective strategy to restore this lake. This research was conducted to investigate the effect of climatic variables on water requirements, identify water-sensitive growth stages, and prepare irrigation scheduling guidelines for wheat, which is one of the main crops in the studied region. For this purpose, crop Evapotranspiration (ET_c) and Net Irrigation Requirement (NIR) of wheat growth stages were estimated by computing the daily soil water balance of the root zone for a period of 32 years (1985-1986 to 2016-2017). Dividing wheat growth period into nine phenological stages was performed using Growing Degree Days (GDDs) and Zadoks scale. These stages included intervals of [Sowing-Emergence (StE)], [Emergence-Trifoliate (EtT)], [Trifoliate-Double ridge (TtD)], [Double ridge-Jointing (DtJ)], [Jointing-Booting (JtB)], [Booting-Heading (BtH)], [Heading-Anthesis (HtA)], [Anthesis-Maturity (AtM)] and [Maturity-Harvesting (MtHa)], whose mean ET_c was estimated to be 2.30, 1.33, 1.03, 3.63, 4.69, 5.13, 6.53, 7.09 and 1.35 mm d^-1, respectively. The mean ET_c, Effective Precipitation (Eff. P) and NIR of wheat during its growth period were estimated to be 774, 349, and 425 mm, respectively. Results showed that wheat sensitivity to water stress is high from booting to maturity, is low from sowing to double ridge and from maturity to harvesting, and is moderate in other stages. Therefore, increasing the irrigation interval in the first three stages of growth and eliminating the end-stage irrigation are recommended for water saving.