Site Selection for Underground Dam Construction by Fuzzy Algorithm in GIS Platform

The global need for water-conserving increasing in arid and semi-arid areas and water preserving by improving vegetative cover in rangelands by reducing the erosion effects is a rational justification for the performance of underground dams. This research aimed to locate underground dams using GIS integrated with the fuzzy algorithm.

The data layers included geology, LU/LC, streams, villages, water resources, and slopes of the Sarakhs region, Iran, were prepared and standardized by the sigmoidal membership function.

Almost 98% of the final maps were in the fuzzy range of 0 to 0.5. This means that suitable locations for constructing underground dams with the fuzzy range of 0.5 to 1 found in less than 2% of the Sarakhs basin.

The superiority of fuzzy method for more scalability from other overlaying methods comes from this fact that in the second step of site selection and in the different management scenarios, we can take advantage from multiple fuzzy ranges.