Assessing land use changes' effect on river water quality in the Dez Basin using land change modeler.

Changes in land use due to urbanization, industrialization, and agriculture will adversely affect water quality at all scales. This study examined the possible effects of future land use on the water quality of the Dez River located in Iran. The QUAL2Kw dynamic model was used to simulate the water quality of the Dez River. Data and information available in July 2019 and 2013 were used for calibration and validation. According to the comparison of the RMSE, RMSE%, and percent bias error indices for the model during the calibration and validation period, the QUAL2Kw model of Dez River had high accuracy with acceptable values of errors. The land use changes in the Dez river basin were modeled and predicted by the LCM model after simulating water quality. The images from Landsat 8/OLI were used for 2013, 2016, and 2019, respectively. Based on the accurate evaluation of classified images, Kappa coefficients for 2013, 2016, and 2019 were 88.19, 87.46, and 89.91, respectively. Modeling land use and land cover changes was conducted to predict 2030. As a result of the study, agricultural and built-up areas and water bodies will increase in 2030. The possible effects of land use changes in 2030 on river water quality were examined as a final step. Based on the results of the water quality simulation in 2030, biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, and NO3 parameters exceeded the maximum permissible level of drinking standard. This study recommends frequent water quality monitoring and LULC planning and management to reduce pollution in river basins.

Comparing ARIMA and various deep learning models for long-term water quality index forecasting in Dez River, Iran.

Water scarcity poses a significant global challenge, particularly in developing nations like Iran. Consequently, there is a pressing requirement for ongoing monitoring and prediction of water quality, utilizing advanced techniques characterized by low implementation costs, shorter timeframes, and high accuracy. In the present study, the investigation and forecasting of the monthly time series of a single-variable river water quality index have been addressed using ten water quality parameters. Daily monitoring data from four stations in the Dez River from 2010 to 2020 have been utilized to obtain the river water quality index value from the dataset. The Shannon entropy method has been employed to assign weights to each water quality parameter. Utilizing the integrated autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model, which ranks among the most extensively employed models for time series forecasting, and five deep learning models including Simple_RNN, LSTM, CNN, GRU, and MLP, the water quality index for the following year is predicted. The performance of the prediction models is evaluated using RMSE, MAE, MSE, and MAPE as evaluation metrics. The results indicate that the ARIMA model performs worse than the deep learning models, with the MSE, RMSE, MAE, and MAPE values for this model being 81.66, 9.037, 6.376, and 6.749, respectively. The deep learning models show results close to each other, demonstrating similar statistical index values. The outcomes of this study assist relevant decision-makers in planning and implementing necessary actions to enhance water quality, particularly freshwater resources in rivers.