مدل‌سازی پتانسیل آب سطحی در حوزه آبخیز بابلکرود مازندران

The availability of fresh water in many regions is decreasing due to population growth, industrialization, land use and climate change. Unfortunately, the demand for water is increasing all over the world. The quality of a watershed's water resources is essential for providing the strategic information needed for long-term water security planning. This research has been conducted with the aim of determining the potential of surface water resources in the Babolkroud watershed. The materials used included GIS, SWAT and SWAT-CUP software. Next data included DEM maps, soil, land use/cover, river flow and meteorological data. Sensitivity analysis, calibration, and validation of the model were performed by checking the performance of the model. The results showed that the surface runoff and base flow were the sensitive parameters of the river flow in the study area. The statistical results for between the simulated and observed flow indicated the satisfactory performance of the model (R2=0.8 and NSE=0.7) in the calibration stage. Also, the model showed a very good agreement between the observed and simulated flow with the value of R2=0.82 and NSE=0.76 for the validation stage. Overall, the total annual surface runoff produced by the model was 26.75 million cubic meters. Building water harvesting structures upstream of the basin is useful for increasing the water potential.