A Review on the Conjunctive Management of Ground and Surface Water Resources with Emphasis on Application Optimization Models

Uneven spatial and temporal distribution of water and population growth in the world, especially in Iran in recent decades have caused problems in providing required water resources. In this regard, knowledge of management procedures and conjunctive utilization of ground and surface water resources as one of the important aspects of integrated management of water resources and their performance in various crisis management programs, water resources conservation and watersheds integrated management seems essential. Accordingly, the present study was conducted to provide a comprehensive information of past and recent studies about the mathematical models and evaluate their efficiency in integrated management of water resources, and overall review of each model expansion, advantages and limitations. Results showed that the integrated management is one of the new and efficient strategies in recent decades. Application of optimization and simulation techniques is a powerful and useful method in determination of management strategies in development of conjunctive optimum utilization of ground and surface water resources. In this regard, MODFLOW model in groundwater flow simulation and MT3DMS model in modeling of groundwater pollution were the most used models and GMS was used as a powerful, general, comprehensive and user-friendly model. Also the literature review on the evaluation of optimization algorithms in solving problems of water resources management showed that evolutionary algorithms with various degrees of complexity are capable of effective solving complex multi-restriction optimization problems for optimum utilization of water resources, planning and sustainable development in the future. In general the provided information in this study can be applied in future planning for sustainable development of water resources.