Sustainable development strategies in upper basin watershed cities, case study: Garmsar City

The 21st century will face the controversial debate on sustainable development with the priority of sustainable urban development. Urban planning has not paid enough attention to the sustainability of cities dependent on natural resources. The development of the city without regard to its watershed makes no sense. Urban strategies have focused on the implementation of static plans, followed by the modernist school, and the need for the interconnection, sustainability, and vitality of urban watersheds, which are the city's feeding vessels, has not been addressed. This research was conducted with the main purpose of explaining the sustainable development strategies of Garmsar city based on integrated management of urban watershed by understanding the factors affecting the stability of the watershed and analyzing the causal relationships of urban sustainability in the operation with Halbehrood watershed stability factors. The research method is descriptive-analytical and collecting the information required for research through library studies and field observations. In order to analyze the information, the DPSIR environmental evaluation model, the AHP model and the SWOT model have been run integrated to determine the best sustainable development strategies of the Garmsar city. The results of the studies showed that Garmsar city is not sustainable as a city dependent on urban watershed and it is not sustainable in terms of providing necessary resources of the basin, but the sustainability of the watershed and the Garmsar city is possible through the implementation of Strategies appropriate to existing resources. Based on the results of quantitative and analytical matrix analysis, eight of the main identified strategies were prioritized. Among them, the development of a joint program for water, agriculture and natural resources in order to explain the effective measures of the chain of production, distribution, and use of water in the upstream lands is the first priority.