Abstract
Regarding the development of the northern provinces of Iran, which are considered the most populated part of the Caspian coast, the provision of water resources is one of the main priorities, especially in the tourism industry and the development of coastal settlements. As a result, seawater desalination is an appropriate solution to meet rising water demand in most coastal areas. This research has the aim of investigating the possibility of using desalination technology and detecting suitable places for the construction of desalination plants on the southern coasts of the Caspian region. In this study, the construction of desalination plant units was prioritized and ordered based on multi-criteria decision-making methods using capacity and environmental strength, considering coastal and marine environmental, technical, and operational criteria such as water quality, distance from the estuary, land use restrictions, and socio-economic criteria including water consumption and population. The results obtained using techniques for ordering preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) and simple additive weighting (SAW) methods showed that Mahmoudabad, based on decision models, is the most appropriate and sustainable place to participate in desalination. The coastal area of Nowshahr is determined to be the most inappropriate. In addition, desalination discharge limitations are a determining factor in the location and design of these units on the southern coasts of the Caspian Sea. Due to distributed environmental restrictions in the Caspian coastal areas, the construction of small desalination units and the use of modern saline wastewater management approaches are highly recommended to control environmental issues.
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Notes
Brackish Water Reverse Osmosis.
Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD).
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Acknowledgments
This study is based on a Ph.D. thesis, with technical and financial assistance from Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University and the Caspian Sea National Research Center's water research institute. The authors would like to thank all of the sponsors.
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Banihashemi, S.M., Solaimani, K. & Yousefi Kebria, D. Desalination plant feasibility and site selection on the southern Caspian Sea coasts using SAW and TOPSIS multi-criteria analysis. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 20, 9521–9536 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-023-05044-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-023-05044-y