The Minab plain water-related spatial planning: a system dynamics approach

Lack of freshwater resources is considered as the main challenge of dryland countries in the world. Iran, in particular, its southern coastal regions, are also suffering from this issue. One of the main options on the table to tackle this problem is water demand management that has been bolded in Iran. As a result, in terms of the water supply, the Minab plain is one of the most important regions of the Hormozgan Province in Iran and various economic sectors of the plain have been facing many problems due to the lack of access to water resources. In this regard, one of the most important policy options to reduce these problems is water-related spatial planning. Such an approach focuses on spatial relationships and has been considered as an effective way to integrate economic, social and environmental programs into spatial development.

In water-related spatial planning studies, in addition to the traditional view, it is necessary to pay more attention to the system thinking. Thus, in the present study, the given mechanism governing the important parts that interact with water resources of the Minab plain has been mapped through system dynamics principsics, les, drawing a system mechanism.

Analyzing and studying the spatial organization of the Minab Plain as well as adopting the systems dynamics, in this paper, the negative factors affecting the water resources have been identified and policies for managing the water demand have been presented. Analyzing system mechanism governing the Minab Plain spatial organization and deriving the relevant policies three options have been introduced 1) Reinforcing the aquaculture, 2) investment, strengthening free trade zone, and 3) water recycling.

Finally, apart from conventional policies about water supply, two policies based on the water demand
management approach have been extracted and discussed based on the performance of the given mechanism to maintain the spatial organization equilibrium of the Minab plain