The importance of water resources in prioritizing the economic sectors of Isfahan province

The purpose of this study is to prioritize the economic activities in Esfahan Province, with a sustainable development approach and an emphasis on the importance of water scarcity in economic activities. In the first stage, the SFLQ method was used to prepare an input-output table for Esfahan Province. Then, the economic activities in the province were prioritized by using six criteria including the intensity of interdepartmental communication and value-added (economic dimension), job creation (social dimension) as well as energy intensity, water intensity and pollution (environmental dimension). Moreover, a combination of an input-output model and the TOPSIS method was applied. According to the results of this study, among the activities in the province, "transportation" proved to have the highest priority. It was also found that the ignorance of water use as an important criterion can lead to significantly different prioritization results.For example, in the prioritization of economic activities taking into account the criteria of water intensity the "Agriculture" sector is in the 20th place, while in the prioritization without taking into account the criteria of water intensity, it has been promoted to the first place. Also, in the "Food, Beverage and Tobacco Industries" and "Clothing Manufacturing, Tanning and Leather Finishing" in the prioritization taking into account the water intensity criterion, it is ranked 17th and 11th respectively, while the ranking of these sectors in the prioritization without considering Water intensity criterion has been upgraded to seventh and fifth rank.