Pilot Modeling of Marun Catchment and Shadegan Wetland

The Marun and Allah Rivers rise in the Zagros Mountains in south-western Iran. The Marun Dam has created a large reservoir used for storing water for irrigation and hydro-power production. Upstream the Marun Reservoir the basin is sparsely populated. Behbahan, which with its population of about 150,000 is the largest town in the study area, has some industries (cement factory). Below Behbahan the Marun River flows in north westerly direction parallel to the mountain range until it meets the Allah River and forms the Jarahi River. The Jarahi River forms an alluvial fan with many distributaries on its winding course towards Shadegan City feeding water to the Shadegan Wetland. A Pilot Model of Marun Catchment is a model based on readily available information and data and if necessary supplemented with a few additional field data. A Pilot Model is thus an integration of all existing information of the system studied. The most important purpose of the research is to increase the understanding of the behavior of the system studied, and thereby focusing the study on the relevant issues. Considering the objectives of the modeling a standard 1Dmodelling approach is well suited for establishing the Pilot Model of the river system.