In recent years, uneven distribution of available water resources as well as increasing water demands and overexploiting the water resources have brought severe need for transferring water from basins having sufficient water to basins facing water shortages. Therefore, optimal allocation of shared water resources in water transfer projects, considering the utilities of different stakeholders, physical limitations of the system and socioeconomic criteria is an important task. In this paper, a new methodology based on crisp and fuzzy Shapley games is developed for optimal allocation of inter-basin water resources. In the proposed methodology, initial water allocations are obtained using an optimization model considering an equity criterion. In the second step, the stakeholders form crisp coalitions to increase the total net benefit of the system as well as their own benefits and a crisp Shapley Value game is used to reallocate the benefits produced in the crisp coalitions. Lastly, to provide maximum total net benefit, fuzzy coalitions are constituted and the participation rates of water users to fuzzy coalitions are optimized. Then, the total net benefit is reallocated to water users in a rational and equitable way using Fuzzy Shapley Value game. The effectiveness of this method is examined by applying it to a large scale case study of water transfer from the Karoon river basin in southern Iran to the Rafsanjan plain in central Iran.
In this paper, a new game theoretic methodology is developed for interbasin water transfer management with regard to economic, equity, and environmental criteria. The main objective is to supply the competing users in a fair way, while the efficiency and environmental sustainability criteria are satisfied and the utilities of water users are incorporated. Firstly, an optimization model is developed to proportionally allocate water to the competing users in water donor and receiving basins based on their water demands. Secondly, for different coalitions of water users, the water shares of the coalitions are determined using an optimization model with economic objectives regarding the physical and environmental constraints of the system. In order to satisfy water-quality requirements, the impacts of decreasing the instream flow in donor basin are estimated using a water-quality simulation model, and the required treatment levels for effluents discharged into the river, downstream of the water transfer point are determined. Finally, to achieve equity and to provide sufficient incentives for water users to participate in the cooperation, some cooperative game theoretic approaches are utilized for reallocation of net benefits to water users. This model is applied to a large-scale interbasin water allocation problem including two different basins struggling with water scarcity in Iran. The results show that this model can be utilized as an effective tool for optimal interbasin water allocation management involving stakeholders with conflicting objectives subject to physical and environmental constraints.
This paper aims at evaluating and revising the spatial and temporal sampling frequencies of the water quality monitoring system of the Jajrood River in the Northern part of Tehran, Iran. This important river system supplies 23% of domestic water demand of the Tehran metropolitan area with population of more than 10 million people. In the proposed methodology, by developing a model for calculating a discrete version of pair-wise spatial information transfer indices (SITIs) for each pair of potential monitoring stations, the pair-wise SITI matrices for all water quality variables are formed. Also, using a similar model, the discrete temporal information transfer indices (TITIs) using the data of the existing monitoring stations are calculated. Then, the curves of the pair-wise SITI versus distance between monitoring stations and TITI versus time lags for all water quality variables are derived. Then, using a group pair-wise comparison matrix, the relative weights of the water quality variables are calculated. In this paper, a micro-genetic-algorithm-based optimization model with the objective of minimizing a weighted average spatial and temporal ITI is developed and for a pre-defined total number of stations, the best combination of monitoring stations is selected. The results show that the existing monitoring system of the Jajrood River should be partially strengthened and in some cases the sampling frequencies should be increased. Based on the results, the proposed approach can be used as an effective tool for evaluating, revising, or redesigning the existing river water quality monitoring systems.
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