Crisis Management of Water in Arak City Using System Dynamics

Water scarcity has become one of the most vital challenges in most countries around the world. Roughly0.5 million residents live in Arak, the capital of Markazi province of Iran. Because of the increasingwater demand and recent water shortages due to climate change, more water will be required in the city in the
future. Bridging the gap between supply and demand needs powerful management tools. In this study, Arakurban water system has been modeled using a System Dynamics (SD) approach. Employing dynamic modelingand the dynamic system analysis method, the present study was conducted to address the integrated waterresources management in Arak region taking advantage of a comprehensive outlook of the water resourcessystem in the region and implementing a behavioral simulation in the Vensim software. The Arak SD modelincludes water supply sources, demand sources (domestic, irrigation and industry use) and management tools (water price change, wastewater reuse, inter-basin water transfer, and, population reduction). Model simulationfor different scenarios investigates the influence of installingconservative fixtures, leak detection and reformation of the water supply network. The model has proven to be useful for Arak’s urban, and its is applicable to other cities, especially those in arid or semi-arid regions