THE ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL REQUIREMENTS IN PROCESS OF WATER ALLOCATION FOR WATERSHEDS IN IRAN: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT APPROACH

Rapid development of Iran after Islamic Revolution in dam construction industry and increasing the regulated water volume of dams and setting goal for establishment of integrated water resources management caused that water allocation method was developed and established. This method have used as a tool for control of dam construction effects on environment as well as stakeholders rights, from the view point of sustainable development. Examination of the results of water allocation method in watersheds show that most of these projects have been designed and constructed for maximizing goals like water supply for agricultural, industrial and consumption uses and environmental water requirements have not been emphasized in design phase. Although in very limited of these projects, designers used some limited and fixed volume of water as environmental water requirement. Literature review on estimation of environmental water requirement introduces numerous methods for this estimation. These methods include wide spectrum from rapid assessment methods like hydrological methods to holistic methods. However most of the time there is no completed exhaustive environmental assessment study for watersheds and most of the time this is a time consuming process. Therefore in water allocation process that is a planning phase, rapid assessment methods have used for environmental water requirement in watershed simulation. Methodology will be introduced by a case study.