Abstract
Access to water as the core of sustainable development is essential for the socio-economic development of any region. Water security is challenging, especially in arid and semi-arid regions such as Iran, where changes in the temporal distribution of precipitation contribute to the inherent shortage of water resources. Therefore, it is necessary to choose strategies that can advance this heterogeneous distribution towards balance. One of these strategies consists of inter-basin water transfers. This work presents a methodology for selecting the best alternative for river-water transfer relying on multi-criteria decision making. The method is evaluated in the Khodaafarin irrigation network (Ardabil province, Iran). Environmental, economic, technical, and socio-cultural criteria and related sub-criteria are weighted with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The multi-criteria decision making method (TODIM) is applied to rank the management alternatives. The results of the AHP model show that the sub-criterion of investment costs with a weight of 0.264 is the most effective criterion for choosing the most suitable water-transfer alternative. Also, the results of the TODIM decision-making method indicate the best-ranked alternative consists of water transfer through an existing earthen canal to a pumping lift station, construction of the pumping station at 0 + 400 km, and water conveyance by a concrete canal, with dominance degree of −13.72. The second-best alternative (i.e. water transfer to the pumping station by gravity pipe, construction of the pumping station, and water conveyance by concrete canal) has a dominance degree of −15.54.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aczel J, Saaty TL (1983) Procedures for synthesizing ratio judgements. J Math Psychol 27(1):93–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-2496(83)90028-7
Bozorg-Haddad O, Abutalebi M, Chu X, Loáiciga HA (2020) Assessment of potential of intraregional conflicts by developing a transferability index for inter-basin water transfers, and their impacts on water resources. Environ Monit Assess 192:40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-019-8011-1
Ghassemin, F. and White, I. (2007). Inter-basin water transfer: case studies from Australia, United States, Canada, China, and India, Cambridge University press, Cambridge UK, 2006, 461pp, ISBN 9780521869690 and 0521869692
Golfam P, Ashofteh P-S, Loáiciga HA (2019a) Evaluation of the VIKOR and FOWA multi-criteria decision making methods for climate-change adaptation of agricultural water supply. Water Resour Manag 33(8):2867–2884. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-019-02274-z
Golfam P, Ashofteh P-S, Rajaee T, Chu X (2019b) Prioritization of water allocation for adaptation to climate change using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). Water Resour Manag 33(10):3401–3416. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-019-02307-7
Gomes LFAM, Lima MMPP (1992a) From modeling individual preferences to multi-criteria ranking of discrete alternatives: a look at prospect theory and additive difference model. Foundations of Computing and Decision Science 17:171–184
Gomes LFAM, Lima MMPP (1992b) TODIM: basics and application to multi-criteria ranking of projects with environmental impacts. Foundations of Computing and Decision Science 16:113–127
Kahneman D, Tversky A (1979) Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica 47(2):263–292. https://doi.org/10.2307/1914185
Karakaya, N., Evrendilek, F., and Gonence, E. (2014). “Inter-basin water transfer practices in Turkey”, Journal of Ecosystem and Ecography, 4 (2)
Knapp KC, Weinberg M, Howitt R, Posnikoff JF (2003) Water transfer, agriculture and groundwater management: a dynamic economic analysis. J Environ Manag 67(4):291–301. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0301-4797(02)00162-7
Roozbahani A, Ghased H, Shahedany MH (2020) Inter-basin transfer planning with grey COPRAS and fuzzy COPRAS techniques: a case study in Iranian central plateau. Sci Total Environ 726:138499. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138499
Saaty TL (1977) A scaling method for priorities hierarchical structures. Journal of mathematical psychology 15(3):234–281. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-2496(77)90033-5
Saaty TL (1980) The analytic hierarchy process. McGraw-Hill International, New York
Sadegh M, Mahjouri N, Kerachian R (2010) Optimal inter-water allocation using crisp and fuzzy shapely games. Water Resour Manag 24:2291–2310. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-009-9552-9
Thatte CD (2007) Inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) for the augmentation of water resources in Indiana: a review of needs, plans, status and prospects. Journal of Water Resources Development 23(4):709–725. https://doi.org/10.1080/07900620701488646
Yevjevich V (2001) Water diversions and inter-basin transfers. Water Int 26(3):342–348
Zhu JW, Zhou LN, Zhai Z, Wang C (2016) Financing model decision of inter-basin water transfer projects. Frontiers of Engineering Management 3(4):396–403
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ashofteh, PS., Golfam, P. & Loáiciga, H.A. Evaluation of River Water Transfer Alternatives with the TODIM Multi-Criteria Decision Making Method. Water Resour Manage 34, 4847–4863 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-020-02694-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-020-02694-2