Integrated Planning of the Hydropower Plants in Karkheh Basin using a Spatial Decision Support System and Multi-Criteria Decision Making

Decision Making and Suggesting the best solution for specific problems is one of the major challenges of managing development projects in the current years. The complex context of water resources management makes those issues more complicated for the decision makers in this filed. One of the reasons of those challenges is contrasting development objectives which need compromising between different economic, social, and environmental objectives. Recently, development of information technology has improved the application of specific tools to be used through the complex process of water resources management. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Multi-Criteria Decision- Making techniques (MCDM) are two common tools that could be employed to solve water resources problems. Kerkhahe Decision support system is an enterprise DSS which has been developed as a spatial planning tool for water resources and hydropower assessment. It benefits from an integrated development environment which enables users to define and assess different scenarios of hydropower generation. A case study is presented in this paper using the proposed SDSS to select alternatives for developing Sazbon hydro power plant.