Method for developing sustainable water resource plans

Abstract

With the economic expansion and population growth, water basins have encountered environmental issues, and water basin protection and sustainability have achieved more importance. This study aimed to provide a method to develop sustainable plans for water resources. Thus, it needs to determine the sustainability criteria of a water basin plan and then rank them in terms of their role in the basin sustainability. Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process, the criteria were prioritized by experts with relevant knowledge and experience. The results revealed that in weighting the sustainability factors of the water basin plan, judgments by academics were affected by their fields of interest, and practitioners' choices reflected their organization's scopes and responsibilities. Considering the differences that emerged over the prioritizations of sustainability dimensions, built environment and ecological sub-factors, it suggests a flexible method for developing the basin plans which is open to future changes.