Investigating the Status of the Combined Water Security Index of Iranian Provinces in the Period of 2012-2017: Application of Multi-Criteria Analysis Methods

Drought and water shortage in Iran is a climatic reality and due to the increasing need for water in various sectors, especially the agricultural sector, the problem of drought will become more acute in the coming years. Meanwhile, the approach of maintaining water security is less seen in the country's development policies, especially in the agricultural sector, and development policy in Iran has led to the threat of the country's water resources and has posed a serious challenge to establishing water security in the country. Therefore, the management of water resources and how to use it in Iran needs a serious review and therefore it is necessary that the water resources of different regions in terms of physical, social and economic factors and development policies based on it to be continuously assessed. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the situation of water security in the provinces of the country in 2012 and 2017 based on water security indicators and identify the most important variables affecting it. For this purpose, first, using the method of hierarchical analysis and the opinions of experts and researchers, the relative importance of water security indicators was determined and using multi-criteria analysis methods, the combined water security index of the provinces of Iran in 2012 and 2017 was constructed. According to the results, the provinces of Khuzestan, Tehran, East Azerbaijan, Kurdistan and Mazandaran are in a better situation and the provinces of Qom, Yazd, Kerman and Sistan and Baluchestan are in a worse situation in terms of water security than other provinces in the country.