Journal of Water and Land Development

A strategic vision to ensure an adequate, safe and secure drinking water supply presents a challenge, particularly for such a small country as Jordan, faced with a critical supply-demand imbalance and a high risk of water quality deterioration. In order to provide sustainable and equitable long-term water management plans for the future, current and future demands, along with available adaptation options should be assessed through community engagement. An analysis of available water resources, existing demands and use per sector served to assess the nation’s historic water status. Taking into account the effect of both population growth and rainfall reduction, future per sector demands were predicted by linear temporal trend analysis. Water sector vulnerability and adaptation options were assessed by engaging thirty five stakeholders. A set of weighed-criterions were selected, adopted, modified, and then framed into comprehensive guidelines. A quantitative ratio-level approach was used to quantify the magnitude and likelihood of risks and opportunities associated with each proposed adaptation measure using the level of effectiveness and severity status. Prioritization indicated that public awareness and training programs were the most feasible and effective adaptation measures, while building new infrastructure was of low priority. Associated barriers were related to a lack of financial resources, institutional arrangements, and data collection, sharing, availability, consistency and transparency, as well as willingness to adapt. Independent community-based watershed-vulnerability analyses to address water integrity at watershed scale are recommended.

Satellite remote sensing provides a synoptic view of the land and a spatial context for measuring drought impacts, which have proved to be a valuable source of spatially continuous data with improved information for monitoring vegetation dynamics. Many studies have focused on detecting drought effects over large areas, given the wide availability of low-resolution images. In this study, however, the objective was to focus on a smaller area (1085 km2) using Landsat ETM+ images (multispectral resolution of 30 m and 15 m panchromatic), and to process very accurate Land Use Land Cover (LULC) classification to determine with great precision the effects of drought in specific classes. The study area was the Tortugas-Tepezata sub watershed (Moctezuma River), located in the state of Hidalgo in central Mexico. The LULC classification was processed using a new method based on available ancillary information plus analysis of three single date satellite images. The newly developed LULC methodology developed produced overall accuracies ranging from 87.88% to 92.42%. Spectral indices for vegetation and soil/vegetation moisture were used to detect anomalies in vegetation development caused by drought; furthermore, the area of water bodies was measured and compared to detect changes in water availability for irrigated crops. The proposed methodology has the potential to be used as a tool to identify, in detail, the effects of drought in rainfed agricultural lands in developing regions, and it can also be used as a mechanism to prevent and provide relief in the event of droughts.

While assessing the effects of climate change at global or regional scales, local factors responsible for climate change are generalized, which results in the averaging of effects. However, climate change assessment is required at a micro-scale to determine the severity of climate change. To ascertain the impact of spatial scales on climate change assessments, trends and shifts in annual and seasonal (monsoon and non-monsoon), rainfall and temperature (minimum, average and maximum) were determined at three different spatial resolutions in India (Ajmer city, Ajmer District and Rajasthan State). The Mann–Kendall (MK), MK test with pre-whitening of series (MK–PW), and Modified Mann–Kendall (MMK) test, along with other statistical techniques were used for the trend analysis. The Pettitt–Mann–Whitney (PMW) test was applied to detect the temporal shift in climatic parameters. The Sen’s slope and % change in rainfall and temperature were also estimated over the study period (35 years). The annual and seasonal average temperature indicates significant warming trends, when assessed at a fine spatial resolution (Ajmer city) compared to a coarser spatial resolution (Ajmer District and Rajasthan State resolutions). Increasing trend was observed in minimum, mean and maximum temperature at all spatial scales; however, trends were more pronounced at a finer spatial resolution (Ajmer city). The PMW test indicates only the significant shift in non-monsoon season rainfall, which shows an increase in rainfall after 1995 in Ajmer city. The Kurtosis and coefficient of variation also revealed significant climate change, when assessed at a finer spatial resolution (Ajmer city) compared to a coarser resolution. This shows the contribution of land use/land cover change and several other local anthropogenic activities on climate change. The results of this study can be useful for the identification of optimum climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies based on the severity of climate change at different spatial scales.

CropSyst (Cropping Systems Simulation) is used as an analytic tool for studying irrigation water management to increase wheat productivity. Therefore, two field experiments were conducted to 1) calibrate CropSyst model for wheat grown under sprinkler and drip irrigation systems, 2) to use the simulation results to analyse the relationship between applied irrigation amount and the resulted yield and 3) to simulate the effect of saving irrigation water on wheat yield. Drip irrigation system in three treatments (100%, 75% and 50% of crop evapotranspiration – ETc) and under sprinkler irrigation system in five treatments (100%, 80%, 60%, 40%, and 20% of ETc) were imposed on these experiments. Results using CropSyst calibration revealed-that results of using CropSyst calibration revealed that the model was able to predict wheat grain and biological yield, with high degree of accuracy. Using 100% ETc under drip system resulted in very low water stress index (WSI = 0.008), whereas using 100% ETc sprinkler system resulted in WSI = 0.1, which proved that application of 100% ETc enough to ensure high yield. The rest of deficit irrigation treatments resulted in high yield losses. Simulation of application of 90% ETc not only reduced yield losses to either irrigation system, but also increased land and water productivity. Thus, it can be recommended to apply irrigation water to wheat equal to 90% ETc to save on the applied water and increase water productivity.

According to the Nitrate Directive it is necessary to established a protective belt (ecotones) around lakes. Inside these belts, it is forbidden to use fertilize for agricultural purposes. It is believed that it is the most imported measure to protect water quality in the lake. The analysis were conducted to estimate the sources of nitrogen entering the waters of the lake. Some analysis were conducted to estimate the sources of nitrogen entering waters of the lake. It was proved that the biggest load (more than 80%) of contamination is entering the lake with water flowing in streams and ditches. Only 10% of the chemicals are entering the lake with the groundwater filtrating to the lake. It is very important to use a proper methods of agriculture with proper methods of fertilization in the whole area of river basin flowing to the lakes.

Imotsko-Bekijsko Polje has an area of 9 500 ha and is one of the biggest karst fields (polje) in the Dinaric Mountains, extending over the territory of two states: Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Many hydraulic structures (reservoirs, retentions, tunnels, etc.) have been built since the middle of 20th century in order to protect polje against floods. Therefore, the security from flooding has increased substantially. However, there is still periodical flooding in the southeastern lowest part of the polje. The largest flood in recent times was in January 2010, when 2676 ha (28% of the area) was flooded. The polje is a typical karst with very complex hydrological and hydrogeological relations. In this paper two hydrological stations, Nuga at the lowest part and Kamenmost in the central part of the polje with respectable hydrological series, are statistically analysed. In particular, the efficiency of existing hydraulic structures for flood mitigation is estimated. The research points out that floods in Imotsko-Bekijsko Polje are largely influenced by water management objects (reservoir, retention, tunnel) and only indirectly by precipitation.