Coping with water scarcity in Kashafroud G-WADI Basin, Iran: climate change or growing demands?

This paper assesses the various factors contributing to climate change in the region of the Kashaffoud G-WADI Basin in Iron; quanti- fies the local impacts of climate change, especially local water scarcity; and simulates and discusses several proposed methods to combat these impacts. Hydrologic and climatic data are statistically analyzed and VENSIM modeling is used for various simulations of water resources in the basin. Results show that the natural climate changes affecting Kashafroud Basin include increased tempera- ture, less rainfall, more frequent droughts, and changes in rainfall patterns, all of which are local symptoms of climate change in recent years. However, the most important challenge in the basin is the overexploitation of surface and groundwater resources to meet the growing water demands, especially domestic needs. Changes in land use, reallocation of water uses, groundwater depletion, and deg- radation of the quality of surface waters have all contributed to significant changes in the environmental features of this basin, and are the main reason why water demands now exceed the renewal capacity of the basin. Proposed response measures include reallocation of resources among different uses, inter-basin water ~ansfers, drawing water from six small dams on the Kashafroud River, reducing groundwater extraction, and replacing groundwater extraction for agriculture by reuse of urban wastewater. This study concludes that although changes in global climatic pararneters have altered environmental features in the basin, local factors, such as water utilization beyond the renewable capacity of the basin, are more significant in worsening the impacts of climate change.

G-WADI PERSIANN-CCS GeoServer for extreme precipitation event monitoring

The Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing at the University of California, Irvine （CHRS） has been collaborating with UNESCO＇s International Hydrological Program （IHP） to build a facility for forecasting and mitigating hydrological disasters. This collaboration has resulted in the development of the Water and Development Information for Arid Lands-- a Global Network （G-WADI） PERSIANN-CCS GeoServer, a near real-time global precipitation visualization and data service. This GeoServer pro- vides to end-users the tools and precipitation data needed to support operational decision making, research and sound water man- agement. This manuscript introduces and demonstrates the practicality of the G-WADI PERSIANN-CCS GeoServer for monitor- ing extreme precipitation events even over regions where ground measurements are sparse. Two extreme events are analyzed. The first event shows an extreme precipitation event causing widespread flooding in Beijing, China and surrotmding districts on July 21, 2012. The second event shows tropical storm Nock-Ten that occurred in late July of 2011 causing widespread flooding in Thailand. Evaluation of PERSIANN-CCS precipitation over Thailand using a rain gauge network is also conducted and discussed.