Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-16-2019

Publication Title

Environments

Publisher

MDPI

Volume

6

Issue

2

First page number:

20

Abstract

Best Management Practices (BMPs) are commonly used to control pollution in the river basins. Prioritization of BMPs helps improve the efficiency and effectiveness of pollution reduction, especially in Critical Source Areas (CSAs) that produce the highest pollution loads. Recently, the Dez River in Khuzestan, Iran, has become highly eutrophic from the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides. In this basin, dry and irrigated farming produce 77.34% and 6.3% of the Total Nitrogen (TN) load, and 83.56% and 4.3% of the Total Phosphorus (TP) load, respectively. In addition, residential, pasture, and forest land uses together account for 16.36% of the TN and 12.14% of the TP load in this area. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was implemented to model the Dez River basin and evaluate the applicability of several BMPs, including point source elimination, filter strips, livestock grazing, and river channel management, in reducing the entry of pollution loads to the river. Sensitivity analysis and calibration/validation of the model was performed using the SUFI-2 algorithm in the SWAT Calibration Uncertainties Program (SWAT-CUP). The CSAs were identified using individual (sediment, TN, TP) and combined indices, based on the amount of pollution produced. Among the BMPs implemented, the 10 m filter strip was most effective in reducing TN load (42.61%), and TP load (39.57%).

Keywords

Water quality; SWAT; SWAT-CUP; SUFI-2

Disciplines

Civil and Environmental Engineering

File Format

PDF

File Size

8083 KB

Language

English

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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