Application of Bayesian Modeling Method Based on a Hierarchical Structure for Dams Environmental Risk Assessment (Case study: Taleghan Dam)

Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) is an important tool for management of environment and sustainable development achievement. With forecast and proper risk management, environmental damages will decrease. In this study, the environmental risk assessment of Taleghan dam by using Bayesian network (BN), with considering relations between variables and uncertainty, has been done. The main environmental risk factors for Taleghan dam based on the Delphi technique questionnaires and area features are selected. Based on these results, the distributions of the output node of the BN, including, changes in land use, effects on the population and erosion and sedimentation with the numbers of 0.350, 0.346 and 0.326 have the greatest effect and pollution, seismic, flooding, tourism and ecosensetivity with the numbers of 0.321, 0.312, 0.3071, 0.3070 and 0.296 are the next priorities. A developed BN can be used as a decision support system for solving multi-criteria decision problems. It also incorporates dependencies between nodes in modeling. In order to achieve a comprehensive solution to environmental risk of engineering projects such as construction of the dam, the integration of multi-criteria decision making methods and the Bayesian network has high performance.