Decision Making Pattern in Identifying and Ranking Effective Criteria in Inter-Basin Water Transfer Projects Based on Network Analysis Process and Analytical Hierarchy Process

Population growth and the development of industrial and agricultural activities have led to the increasing demand for more water resources. One of the ways to compensate for water scarcity is Inter-Basin Water Transfer (IBWT). Over time and with the progress of implementation of these projects, numerous challenges such as environmental, economic, social and technical issues have arisen in a variety of areas that make difficult to decide on their implementation and selection. For this purpose, it is necessary to identify and prioritize effective criteria and indicators more precisely of these projects. In this paper, the criteria and indices were first classified by Delphi method into 8 main criteria and then they were prioritized by ANP and AHP. The results showed that the priority of the main criteria that in both methods were the same and the normal weight of political-security, health and environmental criteria is 0.36, 0.16 and 0.15, respectively. In AHP, transmission options aimed at supplying urban, agricultural, industrial and environmental water are 56%, 17%, 16% and 11%, respectively. But in the ANP, drinking water is the first priority with 56 percent, followed by industrial water with 18 percent, agricultural water with 14 percent and environmental water with 12 percent, respectively. The results show the accuracy and precision of the use of the ANP model in ranking among different alternatives in any inter-basin water transfer projects.