Classification of natural flow regimes in Iran to support environmental flow management |
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Authors: | Hamid Reza Tavassoli Mike Acreman |
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Affiliation: | 1. Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran;2. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford, OX10 8BB, UK |
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Abstract: | AbstractDevelopment of environmental flow standards at the regional scale has been proposed as a means to manage the influence of hydrological alterations on riverine ecosystems in view of the rapid pace of global water resources management. Flow regime classification forms a critical part in such environmental flow assessments. We present a national-scale classification of hydrological regimes for Iran based on a set of hydrological metrics. It describes ecologically relevant characteristics of the natural hydrological regime derived from 15- to 47-year-long records of daily mean discharge data for 539 streamgauges within a 47-year period. The classification was undertaken using a fuzzy partitional method within Bayesian mixture modelling. The analysis resulted in 12 classes of distinctive flow regime types that differ in various hydrological aspects. This classification is being used for further research in regional-scale environmental flow studies in Iran. Editor D. Koutsoyiannis |
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Keywords: | environmental flow hydrological classification indicators of hydrological alteration Iranian rivers natural flow regime |
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