In the past few decades, withdrawal of groundwater and depletion of
aquifers has increased; the aquifers have a negative balance in many plains and
consequently, an endangering phenomenon called sinkholes have turned up.
This phenomenon has created a concern for the people who lives in Abarkuh
county watershed as well. This study attempts to investigate the factors most
likely to cause a sinkhole event and evaluation of management strategies, by
applying system dynamics approach. The results showed the verification of the
model in simulating the groundwater level of the watershed. Moreover, the
effects of crop pattern factor in the declining trend of groundwater level and
increasing trend of depth of sinkhole event have been detected. In contrast,
reducing the irrigation water demand, the withdrawal more than the
requirement, and drinking water consumption, as management scenarios,
demonstrated the most influence in order to prevent of sinkhole occurrence in
the future, respectively.