Dam

During late nineteenth century, Khuzistan was considered to be the most fertile land of Persia which at one time had yielded $ 50 million if calculated on 1962 price index. Many British officials presented in Iran and India office have recorded the abundance of water through a network of five rivers and canals, making Khuzistan a fertile ground for major staple and cash crops. At the time when the general populace was affected by the famine, Khuzistan stood unaffected. But thoroughly and gradually Khuzistan had faced deplorable condition owing to the British policy and power struggle. With the opening of the Karun River, the British influence had reached to the extent that they started interfering in the appointment of governors and granting of Khuzistan developmental projects to French, Dutch or Germans. The present article highlights the increasing influence of British in the political and economic affairs of Iran especially Khuzistan which was considered to be the 'second Egypt' next to Seistan. They had even assisted by the principle Arabs and Bakhtiaris tribes of Khuzistan as well as the influential trading and commercial figures to sabotage the irriga-tion project which could hamper the water flow to Karun River, a back bone for their commercial interest. In the first quarter of 20th century the British policy in Khuzistan proved detrimental to their vested interest.

A sensitivity analysis of the flood safety of Solaimantangeh dam using a regional climate change simulation is presented. Based on the output of the CCSM (Community Climate Change System Model) general circulation model, the NIRCM (North of Iran Regional Climate Model) computes regional scale output with 50 km spatial resolution and 21 vertical layers. Using the SRES (Special Report Emission Scenario) “B1” Climate Change Scenario when applied to the Tajan river basin, where Solaimantangeh dam is located, NIRCM reduces significantly the bias in Annual Maximum Event total Precipitation (AMEP) & Annual Maximum Daily Precipitation (AMDP) that CCSM shows. The stream flow change scenario is then simulated using SSARR (Stream flow Synthesis and Reservoir Regulation) model. A rainfall-runoff model was implemented using precipitation and temperature projected by CCSM and NIRCM. The model demonstrated that average Stream flow would increases 38.7% and the variability would increases 14.3%. This remarkable increase in projected annual maximum flow for the next 20 years (2004-2023) should be a significant negative signal to water resources managers. The results indicate that the number of floods remains almost the same, but that the magnitude of a single flood event and the recovery from it become worse.