Drought changes trend in Khuzestan Province, Iran

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Research Paper 01/04/2015
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Drought changes trend in Khuzestan Province, Iran

Ali Asareh, Ebrahim Amiri
J. Biodiv. & Environ. Sci. 6(4), 353-360, April 2015.
Copyright Statement: Copyright 2015; The Author(s).
License: CC BY-NC 4.0

Abstract

Iran is a dry country suffering from water crisis. With respect to the role of surface waters in the region ecosystem and the effect of drought on quantity and quality of waters, the present study was carried out to investigate drought changes trend in Khuzestan Province. Therefore, the annual rainfall statistics of synoptic stations in Dezful, Shooshtar,Behbahan, Abadan, MasjedSoleiman, Ahvaz, and Izeh were used for a period of 20 months. The accuracy and of the dataand homogeneity were tested through the run test and double mass analysis. Then, the frequency and severity of drought were studied based on the implementation of standardized precipitation index (SPI). In order to investigate drought changes trend in selected stations, 5-year moving mean was used. The obtained results showed that 10 cases of drought in Ahvaz station, 11 ones in Dezful station, 12 ones in Abadan station, 10 ones in Masjed Soleiman station, 10 ones in Behbahan station, 11 ones in Izeh station, and 8 ones in Shooshtar station had occurred. The results of the research showed that in all stations except Shooshtar station more than 50% of drought period had occurred and the trend is quite evident in the 5-year moving mean of the data. The results also indicated that in all stations the changes of 5-year moving mean had a decreasing trend and the reduction was equal to 54.55% in Abadan station, 45.58% in Ahvaz station, 49.20% in Behbahan station, 41.53% in Izeh station, 51.09% in MasjedSoleiman station, 42.20% in Dezful station, and 41.64% in Shooshtar station.

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