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Conjunctive management of surface and groundwater under severe drought: A case study in southern Iran

Hormozgan Province, located in the south of Iran, faces several challenges regarding water resources management. The first one is the discharge of a massive volume of water to the Persian Gulf because of the concentration of the annual rainfalls in a short period of time and the narrow distance between the headwater and the coast. The second one is the unbalanced development of economic sectors in comparison with distribution of fresh water resources. Finally, long-term drought is also common in this area. The construction of a carry-over dam (Esteghlal Dam) and several conveyance pipelines and withdrawing of the surface water and groundwater resources were considered as the solution to deal with those challenges. During recent drought, severe overdraft and inefficient use of recourses confirmed the fact that all done before are not enough. During this period, there was a tendency to store water in reservoir in order to meet the demand of the urban sector. Therefore, the agricultural demand was the first victim of water allocation policy. It caused over exploitation of the groundwater resources (to meet the agricultural demand) and considerable losses (evaporation and leakage) from the reservoir. All of the above-mentioned problems confirm the necessity of the development of a conjunctive use policy. In this paper, all demand related to the Esteghlal Dam and the Minab Aquifer (Bandarabbas City and agriculture in the Minab Plain) were considered as the case study. The main objective was to find the best applicable conjunctive policy which as well guarantees the conservation of the Minab Aquifer. Alternative water allocation policies have been developed based on the present capacities and the experience of local operating staff.