Bidabadi et al. (2026) Spatial risk assessment of drought-induced operational failures in interconnected irrigation canals: application to the Mahyar–Jarghooye district, Iran

Identification

• Journal: Irrigation Science
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-03-10
• Authors: Misagh Bidabadi, S. Mehdy Hashemy Shahdany, Mahmoud Mashal
• DOI: 10.1007/s00271-026-01096-3

Research Groups

Water Engineering Department, Faculty of Agricultural Technology, College of Agriculture & Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Short Summary

This study develops a stakeholder-scale, map-based risk assessment framework to evaluate drought-induced operational failures in interconnected irrigation canals under water shortages (WS) and inflow fluctuations (IF). Applied to the Mahyar–Jarghooye district in Iran, it generates spatial vulnerability, consequence, and risk maps to identify hotspots and inform management.

Objective

• To develop a spatial risk-based framework to strengthen the assessment of surface water distribution in the Mahyar–Jarghooye Irrigation District under drought-driven non-standard diversion inflows, specifically water shortages (WS) and inflow fluctuations (IF).

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Irrigation district scale, specifically the Mahyar–Jarghooye Irrigation District in central Iran, covering approximately 11,000 hectares and comprising 659 irrigated units with a canal network length of 121 kilometers.
• Temporal Scale: Long-term historical records of diversion inflow (Q_div), with analysis spanning multiple decades to identify and classify drought events. Simulations are scenario-based for specific operational horizons.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Coupled hydraulic–operational simulator (Integrator–Delay (ID) routing model implemented in MATLAB, integrated with manual Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) logic); Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for consequence index.
• Data sources: Historical diversion inflow (Q_div) records from the ZobAhan Diversion Dam; water-right allocation records for irrigated units; available hydraulic information for canal network calibration/validation; district geodatabase for spatial mapping.

Main Results

• Long-term records indicate frequent non-standard inflows: 1037 Water Shortage (WS) events (36.9% unprecedented, 19.9% exceptional/very high) and 390 Inflow Fluctuation (IF) events (75.1% exceeding 2.0 cubic meters per second).
• Vulnerability and consequence escalate non-linearly with hazard severity, particularly in midstream and downstream areas.
• Under WS, a critical threshold exists: when diversion inflow drops below approximately 50% of baseline, 65–80% of the district experiences severe consequences (10–30% consequence index), with 45% of peripheral areas approaching near-zero performance.
• Under high IF conditions, 50–60% of the area exceeds 60% risk, and many units drop below a 20% consequence index.
• Risk maps show a transition from localized hotspots under mild stress to district-wide systemic risk under severe WS and IF conditions.

Contributions

This study's principal contribution is the explicit dual-hazard representation of non-standard diversion inflows (Water Shortage and Inflow Fluctuations) within a unified, stakeholder-scale spatial risk framework. It demonstrates that these two distinct disturbance modes generate different operational failure signatures and spatial risk patterns, complementing existing WS-centered assessments by providing a practical diagnostic to differentiate between WS-dominated and IF-dominated performance loss.

Funding

• Iran National Science Foundation (INSF), Project No. 4034905.

Citation

@article{Bidabadi2026Spatial,
  author = {Bidabadi, Misagh and Shahdany, S. Mehdy Hashemy and Mashal, Mahmoud},
  title = {Spatial risk assessment of drought-induced operational failures in interconnected irrigation canals: application to the Mahyar–Jarghooye district, Iran},
  journal = {Irrigation Science},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1007/s00271-026-01096-3},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-026-01096-3}
}