Developing the stormwater management scenarios for Neyshabur City and choosing the best scenarios using a multi-criteria decision making technique

One of the major issues that residential and industrial zones encountered is lack of stormwater management for these areas that can lead to inundation problem. This research aims to solve the problem of inundation as well as the shortage of water sources in Neyshabur City. Following the identification of the executable stormwater management actions and developing 32 management scenarios for the city, the impacts of implementing the scenarios were predicted considering technical, environmental, hydrologic, economic and social criteria. The scenarios were prioritized using a multi-criteria decision making technique. The analysis based on the weighs elicited using the Delphi method among participants having tertiary education, indicates that scenario 24 (combination of bioretention, infiltration basin, and underground detention) is considered as the preferred scenario. But for the case of the participants under tertiary education, scenario 28 (combination of bioretention, infiltration trench, infiltration well, porous pavement, infiltration basin, and underground detention) is considered as the best scenario. The outcomes of the current research, explicitly assist the managers and planners in Neyshabur City to manage urban stormwater more effectively and can also implicitly provide suitable research model for other urban watersheds to be adopted by researchers and practitioners.