Journal of New Approaches in Water Engineering and Environment
Scientific Journal

Climate Change Impacts on Hydrological Droughts under RCP Scenarios Using SDI and Time Series Modeling (Case Study: Lake Urmia)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Zaihollah Khani Temeliyeh 1
Rasoul Mirabbasi Najafabadi 2
Shahab Shadmehr 3
Zahra Shamsi 4
Ali Mansour Bahmani 5

1 Department of Water Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran.

2 Department of Water Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, Iran.

3 Science in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System, Mohaghegh Ardabili University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Ardabil, Iran.

4 Department of Water Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Lorestan University, Lorestan, Iran.

5 Water Engineering Expert, Kerman Regional Water Organization, Kerman, Iran.

10.22034/nawee.2025.553994.1172
Abstract
Climate change is currently a major topic in scientific circles and in publications related to environmental and atmospheric sciences.The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of climate change on climatic variables and hydrological drought in the Urmia Lake basin, Iran.For this purpose, the SDI index was calculated, and the Ar(p) time series model was generated with the synthetic data generation technique 1,000 times. Possible changes in temperature and precipitation were then examined using climate scenarios.In this study, the NORESM1-M model was evaluated using 30-year temperature and precipitation data from the Urmia Lake basin for the base period(1980–2010) and for the near(2011–2040),middle(2040–2070), and far(2070–2100) future horizons under three scenarios: RCP4.5, RCP6, and RCP8.5. In the next step, a rainfall-runoff model calibrated with historical precipitation and discharge data was used to generate discharge data based on climate change scenarios for two periods(2020–2059) and(2060–2100), after which hydrological drought in the Urmia Lake basin was analyzed.The findings showed that, based on the time series models and climate scenarios studied, more severe droughts than those in historical periods are possible.The severity of droughts at stations east of Lake Urmia is greater than in the west, with the number of dry periods in the studied horizons projected to be 17 to 20 percent higher than current conditions.Additionally,based on the correlation coefficients obtained for different scenarios, the best scenario for precipitation studies in this region was identified as RCP6,with a correlation coefficient of 0.763, and for temperature, RCP4.5, with a correlation coefficient of 0.994

Keywords

Climate change
scenario
hydrological drought
Lake Urmia
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Journal of New Approaches in Water Engineering and Environment
Volume 5, Issue 2
Summer 2026
Pages 22-46

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