DRIVING OPTIMUM TRADE-OFF BETWEEN THE BENEFITS AND COSTS OF INTERBASIN WATER TRANSFER PROJECTS

The interbasin water transfer is a remedy to mitigate the negative issues of water shortage in arid and semi-arid regions. In  a water transfer project  the receiving basin always  benefits while, the sending basin may suffer. In this study, the project of interbasin water transfer from Dez water resources system in south-west of Iran to the central part of the contrary is  investigated during a drought period. To this end, a multi-objective optimization model is developed  based  on  the  Non  Dominated  Sorting  Genetic  Algorithm  (NSGA-II).  The optimum trade-off between the water supply benefits into and out of the Dez River basin as well  as  energy  production  is  derived.  Formulating  the  problem  as  a  multi-objective  optimization provides a better insight into the gains and losses of a water transfer project. Analyzing the case study, revealed that to reach an acceptable level of reliability for meeting the water demands it is no longer possible to generate hydropower energy with high levels of reliability.

Keywords:

interbasin water transfer , multi-objective optimization , NSGA-II , reliability