Priorities and potential challenges of sustainable management of ultra-deep groundwater resources in Iran

Abstract

The water crisis in Iran, and the large share of water allocated to the agricultural sector from groundwater resources has led to access to ultra-deep groundwater (UDGW) resources. Exploration projects have confirmed the presence of UDGW sources of fault origin in Iran. Deciding on the sustainable extraction of UDGW resources is very challenging. In order to better understand the scope and nature of the UDGW literature, our research combines a methodological framework of systematic literature review with an approach to synthesize manifest and latent content. Additionally, we describe expert predictors for and against inductive content analysis, which extracts necessary concepts, priorities, organization, and coding from the data. MFA tool has analyzed sustainability indices, compositions, correlations perceptual behavior of sustainability dimensions of groups in the variables predicting the exploitation of UDGW. In the proposed model, the synthetic index has determined weighting commensurate with the variability of data, to balance the effect of groups of variables. The most important dimensions of sustainability are Proxy/flexibility measures (69.4), Fund (63.3), Safety (63.2) and Extent and possibility of access and exploitation (63.06) of UDGW resources from engineering, social and environmental groups, respectively. However, the performance of Evaluation of quantity and quality of UDGW resources (39.8) and Fairness (42.3) groups were the lowest due to the environmental and social sustainability, respectively. In fact, a fair and sustainable expedient strategy and a restructuring of hydro-social networks that clearly acknowledge the political aspect of resource management and its intricacies are required. The ministry and the UDGW decision-makers themselves must solve these shortcomings.