Investigating the effect of different management scenarios on groundwater resources of Mahvelat plain in north-east of Iran

In this study, a groundwater flow model (MODFLOW) was employed in order to analyse the groundwater level under different catchment management scenarios for Mahvelat plain in the southwest of Khorasan Razavi province, northeast Iran. Scenarios include reduction in discharges of all wells in the whole catchment, decrease in the recharge of the whole catchment as a result of decrease in rainfall, reduction in the discharge of all wells in an identified critical zone, constructing injection wells and surface spreading basin. Evaluation was done by quantifying the impacts of all these scenarios on the average annual water level over the whole catchment. The results showed that changes in average annual water level over the whole catchment (m) for scenarios 1 to 7 in Table 1 compared to calibration period (January to December 2001) are 4.47, -3.29, 1.09, 1.81, 1.89, 1.20, and 4.89 meters, respectively. Considering climate change in the future, this study showed that all scenarios are important works to prevent groundwater depletion caused by overexploitation. Although, reducing the discharge of all wells throughout the whole catchment should be considered as easiest way to manage the groundwater resources. However, activity of illegal wells should be forbidden.

کلیدواژه ها:

Groundwater ، MODFLOW ، injection wells ، discharge of all wells