Water storage paradox of reservoir expansion and evaporative losses in the MENA region

作者：Milad Aminzadeh, Sankeerth Narayanaswamy, Hannes Nevermann, Matteo Zampieri, Ibrahim Hoteit, Paolo D’Odorico, Amir AghaKouchak, Kaveh Madani, Nima Shokri · 发表于：Scientific Reports · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1038/s41598-025-21859-w · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Water resources management and optimization、Flood Risk Assessment and Management、Water-Energy-Food Nexus Studies

Abstract Prolonged droughts and population growth have increased the demand for efficient water storage globally. Small agricultural reservoirs support local water demands, but high evaporation rates particularly in dry regions undermine their storage effectiveness. Integrating fine-resolution Sentinel-2 imagery and physical modeling, we created an annual dataset of small agricultural reservoirs (< 0.1 km 2 ) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and quantified their associated evaporative losses from 2016 to 2023. We identified over 133,700 reservoirs, peaking in 2020, providing a combined surface area of 1,408 km 2 . The largest cumulative areas are located in Türkiye (309 km 2 ), Pakistan (234 km 2 ), Iran (168 km 2 ), Iraq (108 km 2 ), and Egypt (64 km 2 ). Small agricultural reservoirs offer a storage capacity of 1,243 million cubic meters, accounting for up to 16% of irrigation and livestock water use in most MENA countries. Annual evaporative losses from these reservoirs may potentially exceed 2,400 million cubic meters with hotspots of cumulative evaporation corresponding to regions with the highest reservoir surface area, including southern Pakistan, southwestern Iran, and southeastern Iraq. Our analysis suggests strong climatic and anthropogenic influences on the expansion of reservoirs and their storage efficiency emphasizing the need for mitigation strategies to improve agricultural water security in water-stressed regions.