Integrated water losses assessment and water balance study over arid and semi-arid basins located in developing countries

Climate change, population growth, and water resources crossing political boundaries are the main issues threating water allocation for agricultural, industrial and domestic uses in developing countries. Integrated water resources management developed in a sustainable manner is essential to allow future generations to meet their water needs. A lack of data in developing countries is the biggest problem that can hinder developing necessary understandings. The Tigris river basin is a prime example, not only because it is located in a developing country, but also due to its long history of armed conflicts and breakdown of law and care. Unstable situation makes data collection difficult, available data poor in quality and the measuring tools and methods rudimental. The insufficient data lead to the impact of the climate change on water resources to be not conclusively detrained. This study shows the climate change impacts through investigate the evapotranspiration (ET) changes over the years. Five potential evapotranspiration models have been studied and classified according to the complexity in terms of the number of variables. Choosing the most suitable ET model helped to fill and reconstruct gaps in historical data sets. The statistical downscaling model SDSM was used to predict the evapotranspiration changes for the next 100 years. Google Earth and 3DRoutBuilder helped to produce an entire river profile with a simple, good quality representation of river networks. That aid the run of the hydrodynamic model (ISIS -1D) which has been utilised to produce water levels and water flow information to establish a robust river losses and water balance assessment for a river. Planning of alternative water resources schemes on river basins located in Arid-Semi Arid region needs an assessment of the hydrologic/hydraulic behaviours of that river. In view of this, the thesis further explores the sustainability of water quantities of rivers based on generated climate scenarios and population increases