Assessing the health and ecological security of a human induced watershed in central iran

Figures & data

Figure 1. A general view and the location of the Pishkuh Watershed in Taft City, Yazd Province, Iran.

Table 1. The main issues in different sub-watersheds of the Pishkuh Watershed, Yazd Province, Iran.

Sub-watershed No.	Sub-watershed name	Input/ driving force	Outcomes/ response
S1 to S19	All Sub-watersheds	Disruption of the drainage system due to construction activities (960 points)	Demolition of constructed civil structures (e.g., roads and bridges)
S8	Sanij	Encroachment to the main river prohibitive zones	Hydrological disturbances
S8	Sanij	Lack of maintenance of constructed watershed management structures	Demolition and mal-functioning of soil and water conservation structures
S9	Aliabad	Encroachment to natural resources and expansion of agricultural lands and gardens	Drilling illegal wells and overexploitation of water resources
S6, S19, S8, and S15	Nasrabad, Ko-Kase, Sanij, Mazrae akhond	Disposing construction waste	Landscape degradation
S15	Mazrae Akhond	Harvesting and destructing topsoil and vegetation cover	Soil, landscape and vegetation cover degradation
S15	Mazrae Akhond	Over-exploitation of groundwater resources	Sinkholes and land subsidence
S15	Mazrae Akhond	Reduction in water resources, changes in precipitation patterns and increasing pests	Drying gardens
S18	Daregahan	Lack of systematic organization for using ecosystem services	Un-supervised management, missing ecotourism capabilities, and motivating firing potentials
S19	Ko-Kase	Disproportionate harvesting of sand mines	Land degradation, high water demand, river bed degradation, and destruction of traditional water systems

Table 2. Index, factors and criteria and corresponding reference and calculation method for assessing the health status of the Pishkuh Watershed, Yazd Province, Iran.

Index	Factor	Criteria	References or calculation method
Pressure	Hydrology	Flow peak discharge (m^3s^−1)	Statistical analysis of three hydrometric stations in Islamiye, Taft and Feyzabad and using the Fuller method for the maximum available data from 1991 to 2011
		Annual mean flow (m^3s^−1)	Statistical analysis of three hydrometric stations in Islamiye, Taft and Feyzabad and using the Fuller method for the maximum available data from 1991 to 2011
		Slope (%)	Physiographic report of Saeedabad-Aliabad Taft watershed (General Department of Natural Resources and Watershed Management of Yazd Province, 2020)
		Time of Concentration (h)	Physiographic report of Saeedabad-Aliabad Taft watershed (General Department of Natural Resources and Watershed Management of Yazd Province, 2020)
		Human encroachment to the river bed (Length ratio)	Analysis of current land-use map and field observations
		Runoff coefficient (%)	Precipitation-runoff data analyses
		Centroid of impermeable areas to the main outlet (km)	Using land-use map
		The relative area of the mountains to the alluvium	Extent of rock outcrops extracted from Google Earth images
	Anthropogenic	Moving population density (Person km^−2)	Statistics and information of Yazd Management and Planning Organization for the statistical period available in 1390 and 1395
		Inhabited population density (Person km^−2)	Census of Yazd Management and Planning Organization for the maximum available period 2011 and 2016
		Population pyramid	Census of Yazd Management and Planning Organization for the maximum available period 2011 and 2016
		Area of cultivation of non-native plants (km^2)	Annual data of Agricultural Jihad Organization in Yazd Province (2020)
		Area of human intervention such as mining and other forms of destruction (km^2)	Industry and mining statistics and information along with field visits and Google Earth image analysis
		Abundance of illegal wells	Statistics and information from Yazd Regional Water Company and changes in the area under land cultivation during different years
		Disruption of the natural drainage system (Number and length)	Google Earth Image Analysis
		Environmental sensitive areas index (ESAI)	Compiling climatic, geologic, vegetation, and anthropogenic and managerial factors (Davudirad et al., 2016)
		Mean distance between destruction center and the main outlet (km)	Using land-use map
		Relative area of disposed areas of construction waste	Google Earth image analysis and data of Yazd Natural Resources Department using land-use map
		Relative area of agricultural lands and gardens (km^2)
Pressure	Anthropogenic	Number of livestock uses rangelands according to grazing license	Annual data from Agricultural Jihad Organization in Yazd Province (2020)
	Climatic	Mean annual precipitation (mm)	Data from 26 meteorological stations from Taft, Yazd, Mehriz, Abarkooh cities for the statistical period available from 1986 to 2015
		Mean annual temperature (◦C)	Data from 26 meteorological stations from Taft, Yazd, Mehriz, Abarkooh cities for the statistical period available from 1986 to 2015
		Mean annual evaporation (mm)	Data from 26 meteorological stations from Taft, Yazd, Mehriz, Abarkooh cities for the statistical period available from 1986 to 2015
		Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)	Data from 26 meteorological stations from Taft, Yazd, Mehriz, Abarkooh cities for the statistical period available from 1986 to 2015
		Length of dry period (Month)	Data from 26 meteorological stations from Taft, Yazd, Mehriz, Abarkooh cities for the statistical period available from 1986 to 2015
State	Hydrology	Groundwater level decline (m)	Data on well extraction from Yazd Regional Water Company (2009)
		Flood index	Data from three hydrometric stations of Islamia, Taft and Feyzabad for the statistical period available from 1991 to 2011
		Mean annual runoff coefficient	Data from three hydrometric stations of Islamia, Taft and Feyzabad for the statistical period available from 1991 to 2011
	Anthropogenic	Landscape diversity	Using land-use maps and preparing land features
		The ratio of the degraded area to natural landscapes	Analysis of Google Earth images and locate damaged during field visits
		Non-local manpower (Number)	Field data along with a survey through a questionnaire
		Lack of fodder and feed for livestock and poultry (t)	Annual data of Agricultural Jihad Organization in Yazd province (2020) and interviews to watershed residents
State	Anthropogenic	Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)	Product MOD13A2 MODIS sensor (2000–2020)
	Climatic	The ratio of mean annual evapotranspiration to mean annual precipitation	Data from 26 meteorological stations from Taft, Yazd, Mehriz, Abarkooh cities for the statistical period available from 1986 to 2015
Response	Hydrology	Drainage density (km km^−2)	Drainage system analysis
		Specific flow discharge (m^3 s^−1 km^−2)	Statistical analysis of watershed hydrometric stations for the statistical period available from 1991 to 2011
		Ratio of annual low flow discharge to high flow discharge	Statistical analysis of watershed hydrometric stations for the statistical period available from 1991 to 2011
	Anthropogenic	Area of abandoned land (km^2)	Comparison of land-use maps for the period 2000 to 2020
		Soil erosion (t ha^−1)	General Department of Natural Resources and Watershed Management, and Faculty of Natural Resources of Yazd University and Tarbiat Modares, and field visits
		Landscape fragmentation	Using land-use map and landscape metrics
		Immigration rate	Census from Yazd Management and Planning Organization for the available statistical period of 2011 and 2016, and questionnaire
		Unemployment rate	Census from Yazd Management and Planning Organization for the available statistical period of 2011 and 2016, and questionnaire
		Economic productivity	Census from Yazd Management and Planning Organization for the available statistical period of 2011 and 2016, and questionnaire

Table 3. Determinant factors in assessing pressure, state and response indices for health assessment of Pishkuh Watershed, Yazd Province, Iran.

Index	Climatic	Hydrology	Anthropogenic
Pressure	Mean annual precipitation (mm) Standardized annual rainfall index	Mean annual flow (m^3 s^−1) Flood volume (m^3) Slope (%) Runoff coefficient Drainage system disruption (number km^−2) Rock protrusion area ratio	Environmentally sensitive index Land-use change to agriculture (km^2 km^−2) Number of livestock exploiting pastures (number km^−2)
State	The mean annual evapotranspiration ratio to precipitation	Flood index	Annual NDVI Naturalism Evaluation Index
Response		Stream density (km km^−2) Flow Discharge special moment (m^3 s^−1 km^−2)	Unemployed number (person) Number of landscape spots The area of the spots protrudes from the rock Number of rock outcrops per 100 hectares The area of the spots is poor pasture Number of spots is weak pasture The perimeter to area of Poor rangeland landscape (km km^−2) Area of spots in the garden (km^2) The area of the spots is agriculture (km^2) The area of the spots is watery (km^2) The area of the spots is residential (km^2) The area of the spots is industrial (km^2) The area of the spots is a intermediate rangeland (km^2) The ratio of the area of the largest spot to the total landscape of the intermediate rangeland The area of the spots is a good pasture area (km^2) Mining area (km^2)

Figure 2. Zoning of pressure, state, response, and health index of the Pishkuh Watershed, Taft City, Yazd Province, Iran.

Table 4. Descriptive features extracted from the indicators of the PSR conceptual framework at sub-watershed scale to assess the health of the Pishkuh Watershed, Taft City, Yazd Province, Iran.

Index	Minimum		Maximum	Mean	Standard deviation	Change coefficient (%)
Pressure		0.34	0.67	0.49	0.07	14.82
State		0.24	0.86	0.50	0.17	34.38
Response		0.28	0.77	0.64	0.11	17.91
Health		0.35	0.75	0.53	0.09	16.91

Figure 3. Pressure, state, response, and ecological security indices for the Pishkuh Watershed, Taft City, Yazd Province, Iran.

Table 5. Pressure, state, response, health and ecological security indices for the Pishkuh Watershed, Taft City, Yazd Province, Iran.

Sub-watershed	P	S	R	Healthindex	Healthcondition	EcologicalSecurity	Ecological Security condition
S1	0.57	0.25	0.66	0.45	Moderately healthy	0.29	I
S2	0.58	0.24	0.76	0.48	Moderately healthy	0.32	II
S3	0.68	0.86	0.72	0.75	Relatively healthy	0.92	V
S4	0.46	0.31	0.58	0.44	Moderately healthy	0.39	II
S5	0.48	0.39	0.55	0.47	Moderately healthy	0.44	III
S6	0.56	0.46	0.77	0.58	Moderately healthy	0.65	V
S7	0.48	0.32	0.51	0.43	Moderately healthy	0.34	II
S8	0.54	0.50	0.62	0.55	Moderately healthy	0.58	IV
S9	0.43	0.42	0.61	0.48	Moderately healthy	0.59	IV
S10	0.42	0.75	0.71	0.60	Moderately healthy	1.28	VI
S11	0.47	0.48	0.64	0.53	Moderately healthy	0.65	V
S12	0.42	0.77	0.63	0.59	Moderately healthy	1.15	VI
S13	0.48	0.65	0.58	0.56	Moderately healthy	0.79	V
S14	0.49	0.46	0.77	0.55	Moderately healthy	0.72	V
S15	0.49	0.58	0.71	0.59	Moderately healthy	0.84	V
S16	0.56	0.69	0.71	0.65	Moderately healthy	0.87	V
S17	0.51	0.59	0.69	0.59	Moderately healthy	0.80	V
S18	0.53	0.49	0.71	0.57	Moderately healthy	0.65	V
S19	0.34	0.46	0.29	0.35	Relatively unhealthy	0.38	II

Davudirad, A. A., S. H. R. Sadeghi, and A. Sadoddin. 2016. “The Impact of Development Plans on Hydrological Changes in the Shazand Watershed, Iran.” Land Degradation and Development 27 (4): 1236–1244. doi:10.1002/ldr.2523.

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