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Cited by 155Hydrology and Watershed Management StudiesSoil erosion and sediment transportClimate variability and models

Modelling impacts of climate change and anthropogenic activities on inflows and sediment loads of wetlands: case study of the Anzali wetland

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Mahdian, Mehran, Hosseinzadeh, Majid, Siadatmousavi, Seyed Mostafa, Chalipa, Zohreh, Delavar, Majid, Guo, Ming, Abolfathi, Soroush, Noori, Roohollah·2023·Scientific Reports
DOI 10.1038/s41598-023-32343-8PMC PMC10070450
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Abstract

Understanding the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities on the hydrogeomorpholgical parameters in wetlands ecosystems is vital for designing effective environmental protection and control protocols for these natural capitals. This study develops methodological approach to model the streamflow and sediment inputs to wetlands under the combined effects of climate and land use / land cover (LULC) changes using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The precipitation and temperature data from General Circulation Models (GCMs) for different Shared Socio-economic Pathway (SSP) scenarios (i.e., SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5) are downscaled and bias-corrected with Euclidean distance method and quantile delta mapping (QDM) for the case of the Anzali wetland watershed (AWW) in Iran. The Land Change Modeler (LCM) is adopted to project the future LULC at the AWW. The results indicate that the precipitation and air temperature across the AWW will decrease and increase, respectively, under the SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5 scenarios. Streamflow and sediment loads will reduce under the sole influence of SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 climate scenarios. An increase in sediment load and inflow was observed under the combined effects of climate and LULC changes, this is mainly due to the projected increased deforestation and urbanization across the AWW. The findings suggest that the densely vegetated regions, mainly located in the zones with steep slope, significantly prevents large sediment load and high streamflow input to the AWW. Under the combined effects of the climate and LULC changes, by 2100, the projected total sediment input to the wetland will reach 22.66, 20.83, and 19.93 million tons under SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5 scenarios, respectively. The results highlight that without any robust environmental interventions, the large sediment inputs will significantly degrade the Anzali wetland ecosystem and partly-fill the wetland basin, resulting in resigning the wetland from the Montreux record list and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance.

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  • ABMs have been widely used to explore the interplay between human activities, decision-making, and their impacts on the environment under management.

    “ABMs have also been widely used in various studies to explore the interplay between human activities, decision-making, and their impacts on the environment under management (Mahdian et al., 2023;Newton et al., 2018;Schreinemachers and Berger, 2011).”

    From Towards integrated management of sandy anthropogenic shores: Developing tools for the exploration of human-natural interactions (2025) · cites this paper as Mahdian et al., 2023

    The Introduction describes modelling climate and land-use effects on the Anzali wetland with SWAT, and Materials and methods > LULC prediction describes a Land Change Modeler using a neural network and Markov Chain analysis. Neither passage addresses the use of agent-based models (ABMs) or modelling human decision-making; searches for those terms found no supporting passage in our copy. Page numbers were not provided. (LLM, conf=0.76)

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Authors
Mahdian, M., Hosseinzadeh, M., Siadatmousavi, S. M., Chalipa, Z., Delavar, M., Guo, M., Abolfathi, S., & Noori, R.
Affiliations
  • Iran University of Science and Technology (IR)
  • Tarbiat Modares University (IR)
  • University of Warwick (GB)
  • University of Tehran (IR)
Corresponding author
Hosseinzadeh, Majid
ORCID
Venue
Scientific Reports
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2023-04-03
Volume
13
Issue
1
Pages
5399-5399
ISSN
2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1038/s41598-023-32343-8
PMC
PMC10070450
OpenAlex
W4362521255
Cited by
155
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 30 · 2025: 45 · 2024: 50 · 2023: 29
FWCI
12.29
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
Japan International Cooperation Agency
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Water Science and Technology › Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil erosion and sediment transport
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
Keywords
climate change impacts, sediment load, Anzali wetland, streamflow projections, Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, temperature and precipitation projections, deforestation, urbanization, wetland degradation, hydrogeomorphology

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