A National-Scale Assessment of Agricultural Development Feasibility using Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) Approaches

Problem Oriented Approach in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), requires that outcomes of water resources development be assessed based on water resources sustainability at basin level. In planning models, assessment of options and structural and non-structural actions and plans are also assessable based on the variations of these criteria in view of the current situation. Hence, study and prioritization of options in Iran entails the selection and measurement of water resources sustainability criteria at basin level. Agriculture sector as the world’s mainconsumer of water has a significant role in water allocation in different countries. In the present study, three multi-criteria decision making methods of AHP, TOPSIS, and ELECTRE have been used to rank the feasibility of agricultural development in second order basins of Iran. Next, existing trend of agricultural development will be compared with the obtained rankings of MCDM methods. Results reveal that there are signs of agricultural disharmonious and unsustainable development in some of second order basins of Iran

Keywords:

Sustainable , Development , MCDM , Basin-scale , Iran