Uncertain Water Balance-Based Sustainability Index of Supply and Demand
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 147, Issue 5
Abstract
In order to plan for future water resource development, estimating sustainable levels of water supply and demand is essential to ensure that available water can be used in a way that satisfies all sectors. Different indices have been used to assess the sustainability of water supply-demand within a catchment. The most important elements of water sustainability in a region are its water supply-demand, environmental, and socio-economic attributes. In this paper, an index called PI-Plus (P for Paydari as it is an indigenous term for sustainability) is extended, and its interdependencies with another index called sustainability group index are taken into account. A water balance platform is used that utilizes hydrologic cycle attributes and could be considered as a systems approach to sustainability evaluation. A hypothetical case study is selected that has the components of a real-world problem. A time series of water balance data is synthesized by utilizing basic climatic and hydrologic data from a real watershed. This could be considered as a contribution and a practical engineering solution to generate water balance data in the developing regions. PI-Plus consists of five indicators representing the estimations of gross annual available water (using the physical input-output table approach), economic efficiency of delivered water, system’s performance in the context of reliability of supply, and maintaining aquifer storage and river instream flow requirements. Furthermore, a framework for considering a new 5th indicator for social aspects is developed by employing the Nash bargaining theory. Unlike many previous studies of water-related indices, a platform is developed that can fine-tune the assessment of water system performance of different elements and components in a watershed and water cycle scale. Then, by applying uncertainty analysis, the margins of errors in estimating the indicators are determined. The results also present the extent of indicators’ improvement that could be achieved. This study could provide a basis for water balance studies and the implementation of different triggers that are socially sensitive and technically feasible to measure sustainability in the developing regions.
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Data Availability Statement
All input data used in this research can be found from the publicly-available domains of the basic data used for the hypothetical case study through (https://www.maj.ir.), (http://www.moe.gov.ir.), (http://en.mimt.gov.ir.), and (https://www.amar.org.ir.) links. All data and models generated during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Associate Editor, reviewers, and Dr. M. A. Olyaie of the University of Tehran for their constructive comments.
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Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 147 • Issue 5 • May 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 30, 2019
Accepted: Oct 16, 2020
Published online: Feb 25, 2021
Published in print: May 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jul 25, 2021
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