Developing Virtual Drought Exercise Scenarios: A Case Study

There is an increasing need for developing strategies to face droughts because of high dependencies of societies on water. This need has been intensified due to the water scarcity and the impact of climate change. The frequency and magnitude of droughts have been increased in many parts of the world because of climate change effects. When facing droughts, using sound strategies in real time could decrease the drought damages considerably. Virtual Drought Exercise (VDE), a strategy for drought management, can increase a system's readiness to deal with droughts. VDE gives the decision makers the opportunity to simulate the disasters without taking any risk. In this study, an algorithm for VDE has been presented. In developing VDE scenarios, the first step is identification of key triggers of drought. In this paper, after determination of all effective triggers on drought management, their consequences are evaluated using the unranked pairwise comparison technique. The triggers with greatest impact can be used for developing VDE scenarios. The Ahar-chay river basin located in northwestern Iran has been as case study of this paper. Utilizing the proposed scenarios, decision makers can prepare the system for better management of water shortages during droughts.