Optimal water allocation of the Zayandeh-Roud Reservoir in Iran based on inflow projection under climate change scenarios

The impact of climate change on water availability has become a significant cause for concern in the Zayandeh-Roud Reservoir in Iran and similar reservoirs in arid regions. This study investigates the climate change impact on water supply and availability in the Zayandeh-Roud River Basin. For better management, the Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used to develop a hydrologic model of the basin. The model was then calibrated and validated for two upstream stations using the Sequential Uncertainty Fitting (SUFI-2) algorithm in the SWAT-CUP software. The impact of climate change was modeled by using data derived from five Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project general circulation models under four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). For calibration (1991–2008), the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) values of 0.75 and 0.61 at the Ghaleshahrokh and Eskandari stations were obtained, respectively. For validation (2009–2015), the NSE values were 0.80 and 0.82, respectively. The reservoir inflow would probably reduce by 40–50% during the period of 2020–2045 relative to the base period of 1981–2006. To evaluate the reservoir's future performance, a nonlinear optimization model was used to minimize water deficits. The highest annual water deficit would likely be around 847 MCM. The lowest reservoir reliability and the highest vulnerability occurred under the extreme RCP8.5 pathway.