Abstract
Population growth, urbanization, and industrial development have significantly increased water demands in many countries, raising the concerns about water resources sustainability to meet the needs of humans and the environment. Furthermore, the economy-oriented allocation of water resources has caused many socio-environmental problems. The main goal of this study is to develop a system dynamics modeling framework that integrates economic, social, and environmental dimensions for the decision of water resources allocation. The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is used to rank modeling scenarios and identify the best strategy for water allocation. In the application to East Azerbaijan province of Iran, six industry groups (including chemical, food and beverage, non-metal, machinery and equipment, metal, and textile), thirteen water allocation scenarios, and five criteria (including profit index, employment index, return of surface water, groundwater sustainability index, and total allocated water) were considered. The TOPSIS results showed that in the best scenario most water was allocated to the non-metal industry with a relative distance of 0.63 to the ideal solution. On the other hand, the current water allocation scenario ranked seventh, indicating that significant improvements are required to take into account the social, economic, and environmental factors for optimal reallocation of water resources among different industry users.
Highlights
Population growth, urbanization, and industrial development have significantly increased water demands in many countries, raising the concerns about water resources sustainability to meet the needs of humans and the environment
The expansion of economic and agricultural activities in recent decades has exacerbated the problem of water scarcity and increased conflicts and political tensions, which highlight the need for sustainable development and optimization of resource allocations
Banihabib et al.[3] developed a nonlinear model for managing water allocation to increase the net profit from industry and services and their results showed that the optimization model increased water productivity, reduced water demand dissatisfaction, and preserved agricultural products
Summary
Population growth, urbanization, and industrial development have significantly increased water demands in many countries, raising the concerns about water resources sustainability to meet the needs of humans and the environment. Babel et al.[2] developed an integrated model for the optimal allocation of reservoir water Their model included three sub-models for evaluation of reservoir performance, economic analysis, and water allocation with linear objective functions of maximizing consumer satisfaction and net profit. Similar studies have been conducted to optimize water management with an objective function of maximizing economic benefits (e.g.,4–9). Tu et al.[18] presented an optimization model for solving agricultural water allocation problems in China to maximize economic benefits and minimize environmental pollution. Their results showed that increasing economic profits did improve the general well-being of the society, but increased the potential of pollution, which led to a decrease in social satisfaction
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