Systematic Analysis of the Requirements, Costs and ‎Effectiveness of Setting up Nuclear Water Desalination at ‎Oman Sea Coasts for Water Transferring to Sistan Plain

Due to the dependence of the eastern part of the country on the water supplying from Afghanistan, various options on the table have been proposed to reduce the dependence of these areas on entered trans-boundary water resources. As with many countries in the world, especially in the Middle East, faced with a water crisis, one of the most important options is the use of seawater salt desalination technology to address the problem of water shortage. In this regard, given the high cost of this policy package, which is usually based on the use of electric energy and consequently fossil fuels, as well as resulting in environmental pollution, the use of atomic energy for sea water desalination is in the spotlight of the relevant customers. In that occasion, considering the country's high potential for using the Oman Sea coast, due to its connection to the Indian Ocean and the country’s knowledge and ability to use atomic energy, this policy package is of great strategic importance. In this regard, analysis of long term requirements and costs of implementing the policy option from five viewpoints including atomic nuclear capacity, expected water quality, distance to desired destination for water transferring the cost of required energy and finally environmental regards have been dealt with. Then to evaluation the policy option in compare to four other policy options as rival options, based on increasing resilience, buying water from Afghanistan, integrated policy consisting of increasing resilience and lunching nuclear water desalination and finally business as usual until 2050 , the same process has been adopted through a given system simulation model. The results indicate that the policy option based on setting up a nuclear water desalination system in combination with that of increasing resilience in the form of the integrated policy will be the most stable policy package in reducing the dependence of Sistan plain on the water resources entered from the country and, consequently will reduce the dependency of the country on water resources emanating from Afghanistan.