An uncertainty-based framework for evaluating and improving the long-term resilience of lakes under anthropogenic droughts

• Published in: Journal of environmental management 2022-01, Vol.301, p.113900-113900, Article 113900
• Main Authors: Pourmoghim, Parastoo, Behboudian, Massoud, Kerachian, Reza
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anthropogenic drought; Climate change; Lake Urmia; Lakes restoration; Resilience; Uncertainty
• ISSN: 0301-4797; 1095-8630
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113900

This paper introduces a new framework to evaluate the resilience of lakes under climatic and anthropogenic droughts. The proposed hierarchical structure of criteria for assessing lake's resilience has four levels. The first level includes several indices such as long-term resilience, reliability, and implementation cost. In the second to fourth levels, four main resilience-based criteria (i.e. robustness, resourcefulness, redundancy, and rapidity) and some qualitative and quantitative sub-criteria are defined considering the factors affecting the ecological condition of lakes. To quantify the time series of the sub-criteria, a coupled SWAT-MODSIM-based simulation model has been applied. Also, the values of criteria and sub-criteria have been aggregated using the Evidential Reasoning (ER) approach. After estimating the annual resilience time series, three resilience indices, namely the recovery time (Tr), loss of resilience (LOR), and final resilience (Resf), have been calculated. The normalized values of these indices and reliability criteria have been aggregated to evaluate the overall performance of lake restoration scenarios. To show the applicability of the proposed methodology, the Zarrinehrud river basin and Lake Urmia have been selected as the case study. As one of the largest hypersaline lakes globally, Lake Urmia suffers from drastic changes in its water body and a high level of salinization. Also, the Zarrinehrud river basin, located in the southeastern of Urmia Lake, is the most significant sub-basin of the lake and is responsible for supplying 41% of the total annual inflow of the lake. The restoration scenarios of Lake Urmia have been assessed from 2019 to 2049. Eventually, the most effective scenario, which has an average overall performance of 0.72, the implementation cost of 17.1 million dollars, and the uncertainty band of 0.05, has been selected. •A new methodology is proposed for evaluating resilience of lakes under drought.•Some new criteria are proposed for assessing the lake's ecological condition.•The evidential reasoning approach is utilized for combining resilience sub-criteria.•Three new resilience indices have been proposed for evaluating management scenarios.•The methodology has been applied to Lake Urmia and Zarrinehrud river basin in Iran.