A basin-wide approach for water allocation and dams location-allocation

Construction of new dams in undeveloped transboundary basins causes two serious disputes between the stakeholders: conflicts over more water interest and over the new dams’ locations. Hence, water development planning of these basins needs to be done in conjunction with the examination of stakeholders’ new water shares. This study extends the model presented in Roozbahani et al. (Water Resour Manag 31:4539–4556, 2017) to be multi-objective and applies the methodology outlined in Roozbahni et al. (Ann Oper Res 229:657–676, 2015a) to solve the model. The proposed three steps approach determines the equitable allocation of the surface water of an undeveloped transboundary basin while determining optimal number, locations and capacities of new dams. The first step utilizes a mixed-integer-multi-objective model to outline the water shares of stakeholders, as well as optimal dam locations for a given number of dams. Using a sensitivity analysis, the second step pinpoints the required number of dams. The role of third step is the exploration of the dams’ lowest possible capacities. Environmentally, our approach takes the entire watershed’s water requirements into account. We have applied the proposed approach to the Sefidrud Basin, a transboundary basin located in Iran. The results of the approach show that, to significantly improve the security of the Sefidrud Basin’s water supply, three new dams would be optimal.