Prediction and Comparison of Water Pollution Generated by Industry Sector in Iran

Water scarcity in arid and semi-arid regions from one side and excessive and wrong use of water resources and its pollution on the other side are serious threats to sustainable development and environmental protection. Principally, water is used in three sectors: industry, agriculture, and drinking; and the water pollution is created in each one of these three sectors. Despite the low share of industry in water consumption, the created pollution by this sector is very diverse and dangerous. With respect to the the importance of this issue, this study offers an optimal model to predict the level of industrial water pollution on the basis of BOD index (kg/day) for eight sub-sector of industry during the years 2003-2018 by GMDH algorithm in Iran. Comparison of predicted and actual amount of water pollution shows that food, wood, paper, chemicals products, non-metallic mineral products, basic metals, and sundry industries have had increasing trends but textile industry has had decreasing trend during these years. Furthermore, the highest average emission amount of water pollution is related to the industry of food production and the lowest one is related to the industry of non-metallic mineral production

Keywords:

Water Pollution , Prediction , Industry , Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH)