reza kerachian

The decrease in access to groundwater resources and the constant drop in the water level of aquifers in different regions of the world due to the over extraction and unsustainable management of these resources have caused many environmental, economic and social problems. In the regard, lots of researches have been carried out about the groundwater market as a suitable solution for aquifers restoration. However in some cases the water market has increased the tension on water resources due to the lack of proper water market mechanism and monitoring of water withdrawals. The main purpose of this paper is to propose and evaluate a mechanism for the groundwater market in order to redistribute the water rights of groundwater resources and determine the exchange price in the market, taking into account the existing uncertainties. Therefore, proposing efficient and effective groundwater market mechanism, taking into account the institutional, economic, social and environmental components, is of great importance.  In this article, proposing and evaluating the mechanism of the smart water market, a model has been presented for the management of groundwater resources by considering the existing uncertainties. Also, remote sensing of evapotranspiration is proposed as a new approach to measure and monitor water consumption in the groundwater market. In this regard, the uncertainty resulting from the error of remotely-sensed evapotranspiration in the results of the groundwater market mechanism has been evaluated using the robust decision-making (RDM) method. Based on the uncertainty resulting from the error of the remote sensing of the evapotranspiration, the amount of allowed water rights in each season has been considered as an interval. Since the probabilistic distribution of these variables is not known, it is necessary to use non-probabilistic methods to analyze the uncertainty and reach a robust decision. In this regard, considering all possible combinations of seasonal water rights (as different market scenarios) and calculating the decision criteria for each of them, the degree of desirability of these scenarios can be determined. The methodology can be generalized for different study areas, however to evaluate its efficiency, the proposed models and algorithms are assessed using the data of Nough region in Rafsanjan plain, as one of the forbidden plains with high economic value of water in terms of pistachio production. By designing and evaluating groundwater market mechanism, taking into account the economic and social components, sustainable management of groundwater resources is expected to be promoted and farmers' livelihoods to be less affected by water restrictive policies. The results show that the proposed mechanism of the seasonal groundwater market has increased the economic efficiency of water consumption in the study area by 25%. Also, with the implementation of the water market, the redistribution of water rights has a better fit with the users’ cultivated area. Finally, using RDM method, the best scenario is determined as a decision including the allowed water rights values for four auction seasons in the year of market implementation. By choosing the allowed seasonal water rights within the range of strategies related to the best scenario, it is possible to achieve a sustainable policy of seasonal redistribution of groundwater rights in the presence of uncertainty in the market monitoring algorithm.

The failure and inefficiency of past water resources management policies have led to a movement to review, pathologize, and find ways to increase the efficiency of water resources management and subsequently increase water security. Since many factors affect water security, recognizing these factors can improve the performance of sustainable water resources management. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine the water security index (WSI) with the help of the watershed security assessment framework at the watershed scale to comprehensively analyze the water crisis and the consequences of this water shortage in the Neyshabour Plain. The statistical population of the study is 125 farmers in the area the sample size was determined using Cochran's formula and people were interviewed by random sampling method. Also, institutional factor questionnaires were completed by snowball sampling method from experts of water-related organizations. The results show that among the 5 main dimensions identified to assess water security, the water economy dimension has had an increasing trend during the 3 statistical periods studied (2012-2013, 2016-2017 and 2019-2020) and in 2019-2020, it has had the highest amount. But in general, the water security situation in the watershed of Neyshabour Plain has been decreasing over the past 10 years and is in a weak status. In this regard, if stakeholders in water resources management pay attention to the factors affecting the concept of water security, by using and implementing the framework presented in this study, it is possible to improve the compatibility capacity and develop effective operational plans with correct and timely pathology and achieve more stable and comprehensive management of water resources in the country's watersheds.

Interactions and conflicts, or in general, the relationships between different stakeholders in a large-scale water resources scheme, are very important factors affecting the status of water systems. In this study, the conflict was studied, mapped, and rooted in a water system using the social network analysis approach, utility analysis, and conflict tree. After finding the major problems in a water system, influential stakeholders were first identified. Then, using the social network analysis method the relationships between these stakeholders were studied to estimate their conflicts. Next, by assessing the desirability of stakeholders, the ground of conflict emerging between them was investigated using desirability mapping. Using the output of the desirability analysis, social network analysis, and important problems recognition, the roots, core, and results of the conflict were presented using the conflict tree approach. The catchment area in the west of Tehran, namely the Kan River basin, has been studied using the mentioned method. The little interest of the municipal institution in utilizing groundwater resources, the problem of subsidence and the quality of water resources, coupled with the interest in expanding green spaces and urban development are among the challenge between the regional municipality and the regional water authority. The minor consideration for the management of illegal water extraction, return water, aquatic ecosystems, and water quality has been the cause of conflict between the agricultural institution and the regional water authority. It is also critical that the interest of the industrial sector is focused on development of industries and other interests are of less importance in this sector. The lack of interest in institutions such as the urban development stakeholder to consider the water cycle's importance in urban development is another challenging issue.

The water shortage crisis that is sweeping the globe today has posed serious harm and threat to people around the world. Meanwhile, Iran is one of the water-scarce countries due to its location in the arid and semi-arid belt and fluctuations in rainfall. The water status in most of its regions is in a state of tension and sometimes crisis. The pervasive nature of water and the existence of numerous human and environmental factors affecting its reliability have greatly complicated the interactions between the human-environmental dimensions. Therefore, the study of these complex environmental systems that are affected by human actions is a major scientific challenge. This challenge must bridge the gap between the natural sciences and the social sciences and dominate modeling at different scales. Therefore, there is a need to integrate knowledge from the natural and social sciences. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to analyze the water crisis and the concept of water security by presenting a framework for Human-Environment System (HES) interactions in the Neishabur Plain watershed. In this regard, first, the process of changing the water issue in the Neishabur Plain watershed during 2011-2020 was investigated, and then, according to the identification of the prevailing situation in the watershed, considering the influence of various human and natural factors in the current crisis, to identify the main factors affecting the occurrence of the crisis and determining how they interact and feedback for a comprehensive analysis of the water crisis and the consequences of this water shortage in the region. The results of the investigation of the water issue in the area generally show a decrease in precipitation, warming of the air, increase in evaporation and transpiration, dryness, and more dehydration. This is while the largest volume of water harvesting in the basin (ca. 450 million m3 in the 2019-2020 water year) is also dedicated to the agricultural sector. In addition, the results show that understanding the hierarchical levels of environmental awareness and ultimately learning and practice based on key components and interactions identified by the HES framework, facilitates the analysis of system complexity.

In recent years, methods for evaluating the resilience of water resources management projects, especially during extreme conditions, have attracted much attention from researchers. Resilience is the ability of a system to withstand crises or successive difficulties so that it can recover or reach an acceptable level of performance. In previous works, the assessment of resilience of water supply and demand scenarios throughout a river basin has not been adequately researched. In addition, to decide on determining appropriate management scenarios, it is necessary to consider the powers, organizational positions and limitations of different stakeholders. In this paper, first, the resilience of a water supply-demand system under events with known and unknown probabilities is evaluated. In the next step, scenarios of water supply and demand resilience in Zarrinehrud river basin, which is the most important sub-basin of the Lake Urmia basin, are analyzed using a multi-agent-multi-criteria decision-making method. Then, the results are compared with those of a decision-making method without considering the role of stakeholders. Finally, to consider stakeholders utilities and powers, a combination of a leader-follower game and evidential reasoning (ER) approach is used to determine appropriate scenarios. The results showed that in the decision-making method with one level (without leader-follower game), the implementation cost of the selected scenario is 21% higher than that of the scenario selected using the multi-agent-multi-criteria decision-making method. Also, the difference between supply-demand resilience of the selected scenarios using the two methods is low and the resilience of the selected scenarios in both methods are appropriate. Finally, the payoff of the selected scenario in the multi-agent-multi-criteria decision-making method is estimated to be 0.72. Therefore, in using the leader-follower game, a more logical scenario is selected, so that the selected scenario has a reasonable resilience and cost.

Increasing water demands and climate variability in recent decades, as well as the presence of various stakeholders with conflicting goals and tendencies have resulted in serious challenges and complicated water allocation. In addition, there are some kinds of incomplete information in water resources management, which may include uncertainties about hydrological variables, available water resources, implementation of long-term plans and inter-basin water transfer projects. The existence of this information asymmetry will definitely affect the performance and decision-making of the stakeholders. So, it is necessary to consider these uncertainties in management of water resources in the basin. In this paper water allocation under asymmetric information between the ministry of energy as sender and the agriculture sector as receiver regarding implementing water desalination and transmission from the Persian Gulf to Isfahan industries has been modeled using signaling game a type of dynamic game with incomplete information. The equilibrium of the game is pooling consequently ministry of energy in all types of implementation of the national water transfer plan and unknown policies about the environmental or agricultural rights sends the same signal. The best strategy is to release only 60% of water requirements for wheat farmers from the Zayandehrood dam. On the other hand, agriculture sector should reduce their crop area by 10%. The results show that if the ministry of energy managers focus only on economic value and disregard the social, legal and environmental aspects even with this national plan will implement, they will not so inclined to afford agricultural and environmental rights.

Nowadays, water resources management in Lake Urmia and its restoration is one of the most important issues in Iran. One of the important reasons for the critical situation of the Lake Urmia basin is the lack of proper allocation of different parts (i.e. the required water for Lake Urmia). It is also important to consider the implications of lake water allocation to agricultural, environmental, potable, and industrial demand nodes. This paper intends to quantitatively evaluate these effects on different parts over 60 years under two management scenarios including full and partial allocation of Lake Urmia water requirement in the context of sustainability. For this purpose, three performance criteria such as reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability were evaluated in Lake Urmia basin. In the next step, using the concept of Evidential Reasoning (ER) approach, the sustainability of water resource management scenarios was investigated. The results showed that full allocation of the Lake Urmia water requirement resulted in reduced water allocation to the agricultural sector which may have different socio-cultural-political consequences. In spite of decline of water allocation in the agricultural sector in the first scenario (full allocation of Lake Urmia water requirement), this scenario was chosen as the top scenario. Also, the results of this paper indicate that the full allocation of Urmia Lake water requirement is a priority, which has led to the greater general sustainability of the Urmia Lake basin. Finally, it is suggested to further evaluate the sustainability of the agricultural sector by implementing different management scenarios.

The growth of the world's population, the increasing water demand all around the world and the reduction of available water due to climate change effects, have all led to increasing water resources stresses. These conditions would intensify the problems of allocation of water resources. Water trading can be considered as a non-structural approach to decrease the problems of water shortage, without need for huge investments in the installation of water supplies. With this approach, the contributors will also be more motivated to use water efficiently. According to the act of Supreme Council of Water about establish water markets in Iran, the legal issues about markets are mostly solved, and the water authorities have been emphasizing on developing an economical approach in water distribution. Despite all the determination about developing the water markets, neglecting other third-party impacts would lead to a failure. Considering the little experiences about water markets in Iran, this review paper has tried to analyze the effective causes on water markets establishment by analyzing the institutions of water markets in Australia, Western USA, Chile, Spain and China, as well as comparing their performances from different aspects.

Passive defense measures are used to preserve equipment and vital installations of a country from the financial damages and prevent or minimize human loss. In this paper, a risk analysis model is prepared in order to select and rank the considerations of passive defense in water treatment plants, case study of Salman Farsi. In other words, risks of all threatening factors of water treatment plant are determined separately, based on Fuzzy AHP method. Then, participation amount of every unit of Salman Farsi water treatment plant in total risk is determined. Obtained results of the proposed model, indicate that the factor of earthquake has threatening risk of 13.7% in Salman Farsi water treatment system which is the most risk among all factors. Also, the chlorine gas storage tanks, have the most effective role in total risk of Salman Farsi water treatment plant system.

Groundwater resources, as one of the most important factors in sustainable development, need to be intensely considered. Numerical models such as Modflow and MT3D is an applied tool for simulation and management of groundwater flow and solute transport. In this study, Shahrekord aquifer modeling is provided by the use of monthly data’s including hydraulic heads, depletion volume of the wells, springs and qanats, precipitation values. This model has been developed based on the assessment of the hydraulic conductivity and specific yield coefficients in the calibration process. The study year was divided to 12 monthly stress period for calibration (10 periods) and verification (2 periods). The results showed that the hydraulic conductivity from 6 to 16 m/day and specific yield from 0.03 to 0.07 were varied. The predicted water table in calibration process in comparison to observed values of water levels on piezometers with variance of 0.63. These results confirm the need model of groundwater flow prediction. Moreover, Effective molecular diffusion coefficient, longitudinal dispersity and distribution coefficient were calibrated to achieve acceptable variance between observed and calculated nitrate concentration. The most contaminant particles are in the south zone of aquifer where is the nearby urban wastewater wells. Moreover, the central and south parts of plain have the suitable situations for groundwater discharge because of the high amount of transmissivity.

Large water distribution systems can be highly vulnerable to penetration of contaminant factors caused by different means including deliberate contamination injections. As contaminants quickly spread into a water distribution network, rapid characterization of the pollution source has a high measure of importance for early warning assessment and disaster management. In this paper, a methodology based on Probabilistic Support Vector Machines (PSVMs) is proposed for identifying the contamination source location in drinking water distribution systems. To obtain the required data for training the PSVMs, several computer simulations have been performed over multiple combinations of possible contamination source locations and initial mass injections for a conservative solute. Then the trained probabilistic SVMs have been effectively utilized to identify the upstream zones that are more likely to have the positive detection results. In addition, the results of this method were compared and contrasted with Bayesian Networks (BNs) and Probabilistic Neural Networks (PNNs). The efficiency and versatility of the proposed methodology were examined using the available data and information from water distribution network of the City of Arak in the western part of Iran.

Developing optimal operating policies for conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources when different decision makers and stakeholders with conflicting objectives are involved is usually a challenging task. This problem would be more complex when objectives related to surface and groundwater quality are taken into account. In this paper, a new methodology is developed for real time conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources. In the proposed methodology, a well-known multi-objective genetic algorithm, namely Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) is employed to develop a Pareto front among the objectives. The Young conflict resolution theory is also used for resolving the conflict of interests among decision makers. To develop the real time conjunctive use operating rules, the Probabilistic Support Vector Machines (PSVMs), which are capable of providing probability distribution functions of decision variables, are utilized. The proposed methodology is applied to Tehran Aquifer in Tehran metropolitan area, Iran. Stakeholders in the study area have some conflicting interests including supplying water with acceptable quality, reducing pumping costs, improving groundwater quality and controlling the groundwater table fluctuations. In the proposed methodology, MODFLOW and MT3D groundwater quantity and quality simulation models are linked with NSGA-II optimization model to develop Pareto fronts among the objectives. The best solutions on the Pareto fronts are then selected using the Young conflict resolution theory. The selected solution (optimal monthly operating policies) is used to train and verify a PSVM. The results show the significance of applying an integrated conflict resolution approach and the capability of support vector machines for the real time conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources in the study area. It is also shown that the validation accuracy of the proposed operating rules is higher that 80% and based on these rules, the cumulative groundwater table variation is limited to 80 centimetres during a 15-year planning horizon.

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