Journal of Hydrology 589 (2020) 125138

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Journal of Hydrology
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Research papers

A stakeholder-based decision support system to manage water resources T

a b,⁎ b b
Arman Ahmadi , Reza Kerachian , Mohammad Javad Emami Skardi , Ali Abdolhay
a
Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA, United States
b
School of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Based on the Social Choice Theory (SCT), a new Decision Support System (DSS) is presented and employed to
Social Choice Theory (SCT) rank-order management alternatives (i.e. scenarios) in the water resources management system of Tehran me-
Stakeholder Analysis (SA) tropolitan area, Iran. In the framework of the presented DSS, the quantitative characteristics of the stakeholders
Social Network Analysis (SNA) are taken into account to develop a decentralized decision-making method. An agent-based simulation model is
Management scenarios
employed to evaluate the outcomes of implementing each management scenario by calculating nine distinct
Natural resources management
environmental, social, and economic criteria over a 25-year simulation period. It is shown that the best scenarios
Iran
selected by the DSS have merits to enhance the sustainability of the water resources in the study area, and to shift
the stakeholders’ network towards cooperation and collaboration.

1. Introduction et al., 2005), especially dealing with polycentric and decentralized

Worldwide, natural resources are managed by diverse stakeholders,
which have different institutional characteristics, various levels of in-
fluencing power, and dissimilar stakes and interests. Noting these het-
erogeneities, centralized modeling of natural resources cannot be
counted on as a rigorous representation of a management system, and
even may lead to misleading impressions. Therefore, in recent years,
numerous studies have attempted to introduce decentralized and multi-
stakeholder management systems to model natural resources more ac-
curately, and manage them more sustainably (Hämäläinen et al., 2001;
Warner, 2006; Hajkowicz, 2008; Reed et al., 2009; Ribot, 2012; Basco-
Carrera et al., 2017).
Water resources are maybe the most vital natural resources, as the
life on the earth would perish without them. Climate change, popula-
tion growth, and intense chemical and biological pollution are only
some of the obstacles that make the sustainable management of water
resources challenging (Vörösmarty et al., 2000; Oki & Kanae, 2006;
Knox et al., 2012; Boyd, 2015; Ahmadalipour et al., 2019). Moreover, in
recent years, another problem has drawn the research community’s
attention: how a water resource can be managed sustainably when
there are diverse stakeholders with various and even conflicting ob-
jectives? To address this problem, in this research, a new Decision
Support System (DSS) is presented, which considers and formulates the
characteristics and objectives of the stakeholders to rank-order different
management alternatives. Regarding increasing complexities of the
problem, developing a DSS to address it is a challenging task (Mysiak
decision-making contexts (Zulkafli et al., 2017).
The DSS presented in this paper is based on Social Choice Theory
(SCT) (Sen, 1986; Fishburn, 2015). SCT is the study of collective de-
cision procedures that aggregates individual inputs into collective
outputs. The SCT can be considered as a voting technique, which,
especially in group decision contexts, is close to Multi-criteria Decision-
Making (MCDM). Recently, much research in the field of environmental
and natural resources management have implemented SCT approaches
to develop DSS (Laukkanen et al., 2002; Kant & Lee, 2004; Srdjevic,
2007; Ghodsi et al., 2016a; Estalaki et al., 2016; Mahjouri & Pourmand,
2017). Even though applying SCT approaches to develop DSS by these
studies have resulted in a variety of methods to manage environmental
and natural resources, they rarely employ the stakeholders’ character-
istics systematically and appropriately in their framework. The meth-
odology presented by this paper attempts to fill this research gap by
applying outcomes of a systematic Stakeholder Analysis (SA), as well as
insights of Social Network Analysis (SNA). In this study, by utilizing the
combination of these two methods in the structure of a DSS, the pro-
posed approach aims to find the best management alternative that not
only provides sustainability of water resources but also is able to shift
the stakeholders’ network structure toward more participation and
collaboration.
In natural resources management, and especially water resources
management, decision alternatives usually are proposed as manage-
ment scenarios (Watkins et al., 2000; Wollenberg et al., 2000; Lynam
et al., 2007; Mahmoud et al., 2011; Dong et al., 2013). After developing

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: ahmadi@ucdavis.edu (A. Ahmadi), kerachian@ut.ac.ir (R. Kerachian), mje.skardi@ut.ac.ir (M.J.E. Skardi), ali.abdolhay@ut.ac.ir (A. Abdolhay).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125138
Received 24 February 2020; Received in revised form 18 May 2020; Accepted 1 June 2020
Available online 04 June 2020
0022-1694/ © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A. Ahmadi, et al.
Fig. 1. A flowchart of the proposed methodology.
various scenarios, in most studies, a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis
(MCDA) is conducted to compare different scenarios and eventually, to
rank them (Srdjevic et al., 2004; Mendoza and Martins, 2006; Weng
et al., 2010; Huang et al., 2011). Although there are a variety of studies
trying to incorporate social criteria in the multi-criteria decision-
making models (Estévez et al., 2013; Soltani et al., 2015), and employ
participatory modeling in natural resource management (Hare et al.,
2003; Castelletti and Soncini-Sessa, 2007); to the best of the authors
knowledge, they have rarely considered the stakeholders’ character-
istics in their framework, quantitatively and systematically. In the
proposed methodology, all stakeholders participate in the decision-
making process exactly according to their influencing power. The in-
fluencing power index is calculated by utilizing two appropriate
methods (i.e. SA and SNA). This is a promising step toward introducing
more realistic assumptions to decision-making models, which as Munda
(2008) mentioned is a crucial task to address contemporary issues of
real-world policy-making.
Depicting stakeholders’ network by the means of SNA is proven to
be a strong approach to understand existing institutional relations and
information flows between them, their positions in the network, as well
as the holistic structure of the network (Lienert et al., 2013; Caniato
et al., 2014; Xu et al., 2016; dos Muchangos et al., 2017; Saint Ville
et al., 2017; Ingold et al., 2018, Skardi et al., 2020). The use of SNA in
the realm of natural resources management has resulted in some pro-
mising insights to cast light on the management processes and reduce
the inherent uncertainties about them (Bodin & Crona, 2009; Prell et al,
2009; Paletto et al., 2015; Yamaki, 2017; Giurca & Metz, 2018; Krupa
et al., 2018). In recent years, SNA has also been implemented in diverse
2
Journal of Hydrology 589 (2020) 125138
water resources studies to elucidate the governance system (Kuzdas
et al., 2015; Chaffin et al., 2016; Ogada et al., 2017). It is shown in
some studies that the combined use of SNA with a systematic SA can
boost their performance reciprocally (Prell et al, 2009; Lienert et al.,
2013; Paletto et al., 2015; dos Muchangos et al., 2017). In other words,
when combining SNA with SA, these two methods can enhance each
other’s effectiveness by compensating for each other’s shortcomings.
Ahmadi et al. (2019a) have drawn a statistical comparison between the
features of SNA and SA that demonstrates some interesting similarities
in their structures. In the current paper, the results of this statistical
analysis are employed to formulate a novel stakeholder-based DSS
which considers the stakeholders’ characteristics, needs, and notions.
These quantitative characteristics that are obtained from SA and SNA
can augment the DSS by taking the exact features of the decision-ma-
kers into account.
One advantageous and powerful technique to simulate the stake-
holders’ decision-making process is Agent-Based Modeling (ABM)
(Bonabeau, 2002; Railsback et al., 2006). The use of ABM in complex
management systems like the coupled social-ecological systems has
appeared to be a promising procedure to model these systems more
precisely (Schlüter & Pahl-Wostl, 2007; Maes & Van Passel, 2017;
Karslen et al., 2019). Moreover, in various water-related studies, like
urban water supply and catchment water management, ABM is em-
ployed as the simulation tool to predict the effectiveness of different
management policies and recommend management alternatives for
improving the sustainability of water resources (Becu et al., 2003; Ali
et al., 2017; Darbandsari et al., 2017; Darbandsari et al., 2020). In this
paper, to evaluate distinctive management alternatives (i.e. scenarios),
A. Ahmadi, et al. Journal of Hydrology 589 (2020) 125138

Table 1 2.1. System identification and data collection

Statistical similarities between the indicators of SNA and
SA power (Ahmadi et al., 2019a).
SNA measures SA Power
Out-degree Centrality
In-degree Centrality
Beta Centrality
a variant of ABM which simulates the decisions and actions of stake-
holders is used. In the employed agent-based model, agents learn from
their prior actions and decisions. A learning-based simulation is a
simple approach with a low computational cost that helps agents to
learn how to act optimally by successively improving evaluations of the
quality of their particular actions at particular states of the simulated
system (Watkins & Dayan, 1992). In the realm of water systems’ man-
agement, mainly to deal with the curse of dimensionality and the curse of
modeling, the use of learning-based algorithms like reinforcement
learning and Q-learning is reported in diverse studies (Castelletti et al.,
2002; Abolpour et al., 2007; Castelletti et al., 2010).
In the current paper, a new DSS has been developed and employed
to rank-order different management scenarios for an urban water
system constituted of surface water, groundwater, and wastewater re-
sources in a metropolitan area. Innovatively, the results of a systematic
SA along with the qualitative outcomes of an SNA have been used in the
framework of a social choice approach. The outcomes of this new ap-
proach that directly and precisely considers the characteristics of all
stakeholders in its formulation are discussed and evaluated, and it is
shown that it has merits.
In the following parts of the paper, the methodology, the case study,
results, and discussions are presented. The final part suggests some
concluding remarks.
2. Methodology
The flowchart illustrating the methodology is presented in Fig. 1.
The following sections explain the proposed methodology by describing
different parts of the flowchart.
As can be seen in the flowchart, the first step of the methodology is
system identification. Generally, when dealing with a coupled social-
ecological system, the process of identification can be divided into two
major categories: 1. Identification of study area, and 2. Identification of
actors (Ahmadi et al., 2019a). To identify the study area, first, the lo-
cation and geographic boundary of the area should be determined
precisely. Only after this determination, the most critical environmental
issues, as well as the primary management challenges of the study area
can be distinguished. For instance, the study area of this paper, which is
a developing urban area in the Middle East, suffers from various socio-
environmental problems such as intense population growth, water
pollution, and conflicts among divergent stakeholders. These problems
make the decision-making process complex, therefore, it is required to
introduce new modeling approaches that are able to take various di-
mensions of the problem into account.
Just like the study area, the network of actors (i.e. stakeholders) has
its own boundary to be determined accurately. Of course, this boundary
is not geographical but represents the management level of the stake-
holders. For instance, when studying an environmental system, if the
objective of the research is to analyze the highest management level,
considering the low-management-level stakeholders like individual
fishers or farmers would not be necessary.
In this paper, by conducting six pre-interviews with scholars who
have studied the study area, the first list of main actors was created. The
pre-interviews were conducted from June to August 2017. To make sure
that all relevant and important actors are identified, snowball sampling
was applied in both identification and data collection stages (Goodman,
1961). On the contrary to a fixed selection method that results in a fixed
list of actors, expanding selection procedures like snowball sampling
are less prone to omitting stakeholders and ties, therefore, are more
reliable (Doreian and Woodard, 1992). In addition to pre-interviews,
some physical characteristics of the study area were acknowledged, to
recognize the main organizations that hold a significant stake. The
physical characteristics include hydrological boundaries, main water
bodies, and land use. Eventually, in the highest management level,
eleven stakeholders were identified who could directly and significantly
affect the management status of the system (Table 4).
After identifying the main stakeholders, the next step of collecting
data was designing the survey. The survey consisted of two major
sections; one providing data for SA, and the other providing data for
SNA. In the first section, the interviewees are asked to characterize the
role of their organization in the system, to outline their institutional
objectives and preferences, and to specify the power and interest of
their organization. Moreover, interviewees are asked to determine the

Table 2
Proposed criteria indices, their definition, abbreviation, and the required equation to normalize them.
Nature of indices Index Definition Abbreviation The nature of index and normalization
(Averaged in all simulation period and when implementing the k th (after normalization) equation
scenario)

Water resources quantity Elevation-1 Elevation of the first sub-basin CI1,Nk Positive, 4
Elevation-2 Elevation of the second sub-basin CI2,Nk Positive, 4
Elevation-3 Elevation of the third sub-basin CI3,Nk Positive, 4

Water resources quality Nitrate-1 Nitrate concentration in the first sub-basin CI4,Nk Negative, 5
Nitrate-2 Nitrate concentration in the second sub-basin CI5,Nk Negative, 5
Nitrate-3 Nitrate concentration in the third sub-basin CI6,Nk Negative, 5

Economy Sale of water Proceeds from water sales CI7,Nk Positive, 4

Stakeholders’ satisfaction Water supply The percent of all stakeholders’ demands that will be met CI8,Nk Positive, 4

Social security cultivation Number of the years that farmers of the study area could cultivate CI9,Nk Positive, 4
(irrigation water is available)

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A. Ahmadi, et al. Journal of Hydrology 589 (2020) 125138

N
Table 3
Land uses, their water demands and withdrawal from surface water and BCi = ∑ Rij (α + β ×BCj)
groundwater (Ahmadi et al., 2019a). j=1 (2)

Land use Demand Groundwater Surface water where ICj and BCi are the in-degree centrality of the jth node and the
(MCM) withdrawal (%) withdrawal (%) beta centrality of the ith node, respectively. N is the number of nodes
(here, stakeholders), and Rij is the element in the ith row of the jth
Urban residential 240 67.5 32.5
Agricultural Area 180 25 75
column of the adjacency matrix that is an N by N matrix. BCj is the beta
Green space area 60 100 0 centrality of the jth node, parameter α is the normalization parameter,
Industrial zone 20 100 0 and β is a factor determining the amount of dependence of each node’s
beta centrality on the centrality of its adjacent nodes. For more in-
MCM: (Million Cubic Meters). formation about these metrics, readers are referred to Bonacich (1987).
The following equation is used to calculate the SA power of each
Table 4 stakeholder (Ahmadi et al., 2019a). This power index is the arithmetic
Categories and identification of the stakeholders (Ahmadi et al., 2019a).
mean of all the values that all stakeholders assigned to the power of the
Categories No. Abbrev. Stakeholders interested stakeholder.
N
Protective 1 DOE Department of Environment ∑ j = 1 Pij
2 MHME Ministry of Health and Medical Education Pi =
3 TPG Tehran Provincial Government N (3)
4 DNRW Department of Natural Resources and Watershed
where Pi is the power index of the ith stakeholder, Pij is the amount of
5 TRW Tehran Regional Water company
power that the jth stakeholder assigns to the ith stakeholder in their
Developing 6 TM Tehran Municipality
interviews and N is the number of stakeholders.
7 TPWW Tehran Province Water and Wastewater company
8 MIMT Ministry of Industry, Mine, and Trade As can be seen in Fig. 1, In addition to the influence index, another
9 MAJ Ministry of Agriculture Jihad index is achieved by performing SA, and that is the welfare index. This
Intermediate 10 ICCT Islamic City Council of Tehran
index demonstrates how each alternative is according to the welfare of
11 NGOs Non-Governmental Organizations stakeholders and is determined based on the information gathered in
the interviews. Detailed formulations of these indices will be discussed
in the following parts.
powers and interests of all other stakeholders.
In the second section of the survey, interviewees are asked to 2.3. Agent-based simulation
characterize other stakeholders with whom they have formal (i.e. in-
stitutional) relationships, to determine the magnitude of those re- In this research, to evaluate the results of implementing each
lationships, and their nature (i.e. whether the relations are collabora- management scenario, an agent-based simulation model is used. This
tive or conflictive). To measure the magnitude of all quantitative model simulates both the physical characteristics of the water resources
questions, a Likert scale (Likert, 1932) with five points is employed, and of the study area and the behavior of the stakeholders in response to
in the case of SA questions (i.e. the first section), interviewees are asked these characteristics in each simulation time step (Fig. 2).
to provide explanations on the chosen point. As can be seen in Fig. 2, the employed simulation model consists of
In our case study, after designing the survey, eleven structured (or two sub-models. The first sub-model applies water balance equations to
standardized) interviews were conducted with individuals representing simulate the physical characteristics of surface-water and groundwater
eleven principal organizations that hold an important stake in the in every time step; also, it has another section to evaluate the nitrate
system. In some cases, more than one person was interviewed si- concentration of the groundwater basin. In this model, the basin is di-
multaneously. The total number of individuals interviewed was sixteen. vided into three sections or sub-basins (Fig. 3), and the interactions of
All representing individuals were high-ranked administrators of their these sections are taken into account by the use of Darcy’s law. More-
organizations and well aware of the system, and their own organiza- over, the nitrate concentration is calculated for each section of the basin
tion’s policies. Interviews lasted approximately 90 min and were per- separately, in each time step. The model also considers the interactions
formed face-to-face. Interviews were conducted in Persian (Farsi) from of surface-water and groundwater resources, by examining the in-
September to December 2017. filtration of surface water into the basin.
The second sub-model simulates the actions and decisions of the
2.2. SNA, SA and statistical analysis agents in each time step. In this sub-model, in every time step, each
agent takes their actions in response to the system status (modeled by
To consider the stakeholders’ characteristics quantitatively, in the the first sub-model) and the consequences of their previous actions and
framework of the presented DSS, different indicators resulting from SA decisions. More technically, each agent has a utility function or a reward
and SNA can be employed. To determine which indicator is more ap- function that measures their reward for taking their previous actions.
propriate for this task, the results of a statistical analysis first proposed Therefore, knowing the rewards of their actions in prior time steps,
by Ahmadi et al. (2019a) is used. The first goal here is to determine agents try to take better actions. In other words, they learn from their
stakeholders’ influence on the process of decision-making. In other past behavior and use this learning to adjust their current behavior to
words, the aim is to discover each stakeholder’s power to influence the maximize their reward.
process. As it is shown by Ahmadi et al. (2019a), the power index The time step of the employed agent-based model is one year, and it
computed by a systematic SA has the most statistical similarity with two is used to simulate the study area of this paper in a 25-year time period
indicators of SNA method: 1. In-degree centrality, and 2. Beta centrality. from 2017 to 2042.
Eqs. (1) and (2) demonstrate how in-degree and beta centralities are
calculated for each stakeholder, respectively (Freeman, 1978; Bonacich, 2.4. Influence, criteria, and welfare indices
1987):
N As can be seen in Fig. 1, there are three indices applied in the
ICj = ∑ Rij presented DSS. In this section, various variables with varied value
i=1 (1) scales are employed in the presented formulations. Therefore, it is

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A. Ahmadi, et al. Journal of Hydrology 589 (2020) 125138

Fig. 2. Framework of the employed agent-based simulation model.

necessary to normalize all the variables before using them. In the for- Vmax − Vi
ViN =
mulations of the given indices, there are two general types of variables: Vmax − Vmin (5)
1. Positive variables in which higher amounts are better or more pre-
ferable (e.g. the groundwater elevation), 2. Negative variables in which where Vi and ViN are the amounts of the ith variable, before and after
lower amounts are better or more preferable (e.g. the groundwater normalization, respectively; and, Vmin and Vmax are the minimum and
nitrate concentration). Eqs. (4) and (5) normalize the first and the maximum amounts of the variable in the dataset. As can be understood
second type of variables, respectively: from Eqs. (4) and (5), the normalized quantities of all variables are
between 0 and 1, and their higher amounts (now, for both types) are
Vi − Vmin preferable.
ViN =
Vmax − Vmin (4)

Fig. 3. The study area: Kan River basin and its three regions. Each region corresponds to its equivalent sub-basin.

5
A. Ahmadi, et al.
2.4.1. Influence index
The influence index is one of the proposed indices, and it employs
the results of SA, SNA, and the statistical analysis to represent the in-
fluencing power of the stakeholders quantitatively. In other words, the
amount of this index demonstrates how each stakeholder is able to
influence the decisions taken by the presented DSS, based on their
power and position in the governance network. Stakeholders with
higher values of influence index (i.e. closer to 1) have more power and
can influence the management system more easily. As mentioned ear-
lier, three indicators affect the amount of this index: 1. The power index
calculated by SA, 2. Beta centrality, and 3. In-degree centrality, both
calculated by SNA. Actually, in the presented methodology, it is as-
sumed that the SA power index is the best indicator to represent the
stakeholders’ power to influence the DSS (Ahmadi et al., 2019a).
Moreover, two other indicators from SNA have been applied to present
a more accurate and multidimensional formulation for the proposed
influence index. The following equation demonstrates how the influ-
ence index is calculated for stakeholders:
5 × SAPiN + 4 × BCiN + 3 × ICiN
IIi =
5+4+3
where IIi is the influence index of the ith stakeholder. SAPiN , BCiN ,
and
ICiN are the normalized amount of SA power index, beta centrality, and
in-degree centrality of the ith stakeholder, respectively. It is worth
noting that since all these three indicators are positive (their higher
amounts are better), they all are normalized using Eq. (4). The coeffi-
cients of the equation (i.e. numbers 5, 4, and 3), are based on the sta-
tistical analysis between the indicators (Table 1).
Based on the results of the statistical analysis presented in Table 1,
SA power’s similarity to the in-degree centrality is 3/5, and to the beta
centrality is 4/5.
2.4.2. Criteria index
In the presented methodology, 9 criteria have been considered to
evaluate the outcomes of implementing each management scenario. As
can be seen in Fig. 1, criteria indices are calculated as results of si-
mulating the implementation of management scenarios by the use of
the agent-based model. By doing so, it can be understood how distinct
management scenarios affect the water resources of the study area as
well as the governance network and social and economic aspects. The
criteria indices are presented in Table 2. After normalization, a higher
value (i.e. closer to 1) for each criterion index shows a more preferable
situation (see Eqs. (4) and (5)).
As demonstrated in Table 2, different water-related, social, and
economic aspects are taken into account to compare and contrast var-
ious management scenarios.
2.4.3. Welfare index
The welfare index simply shows how each criterion is important for
each stakeholder. As shown in the flowchart of the presented metho-
dology, the amount of this index is obtained from SA, and is as follows:
WIi, j = 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1
where WIi, j is the welfare index of the ith criterion for the jth stake-
holder. In other words, it represents the priority and importance of the
ith criterion for the jth stakeholder. The welfare index takes discrete
amounts from 0 to 1, based on what stakeholders stated about the role,
objectives, and preferences of their organizations. Low values of this
index show that the criterion is not important for the stakeholder. For
example, if a water quality criterion (e.g. Nitrate-1) is not important at
all for a stakeholder, the amount of welfare index for this stakeholder
and this criterion would be 0.
2.5. Social Choice Theory
After calculating all the indices, we can analyze the score of each
Journal of Hydrology 589 (2020) 125138
scenario using the following equation:
9 11
Sk = ∑ ∑ (WIi,j × IIj) × CIiN,k
i=1 j=1 (8)
where Sk is the score of the kth scenario with respect to the stake-
holders’ welfare (WIi, j ), their influencing power (IIj ), and the simulated
consequences of implementing this scenario (CIiN, k ). It is worth noting
that there are 9 criteria evaluating the consequences of the scenarios,
and 11 stakeholders that influence the DSS. In this study, there are 63
different management scenarios; therefore, k ranges from 1 to 63. On
the contrary to classic centralized DSS, in the proposed formulation of
this paper, all the stakeholders contribute to the decision-making pro-
cess, regarding their rate of power, and institutional objectives of their
organizations.
3. Case study
3.1. Study area
(6) As depicted in Fig. 3, the study area of this paper is Kan River basin
that is located in the west part of Tehran. Surface runoff constituted of
Kan River, and its sub-flows, groundwater basin, as well as reclaimed
wastewater, are the main water resources of the area.
There are a variety of land use and water demands in this area like
farmlands and orchards, industrial zones, urban green spaces, re-
sidential areas, and an artificial lake (Fig. 3). The presence of divergent
water-demanding stakeholders with various required levels of water
quality and quantity makes this area a challenging case of urban water
resources management. Water shortage resulted from climate change,
and recent droughts, together with a fast population growth of the area
has inversely affected the sustainability of the system. Moreover, in-
dustrial activities and major factories (e.g. two huge automobile man-
ufacturing factories), along with increasing urban and agricultural
wastewater production have made a lot of serious environmental issues
in this developing area. More details about the study area can be found
in Darbandsari et al. (2017), Khorasani et al. (2018) and Darbandsari
et al. (2020).
The average annual precipitation of the study area is 230 mm/year.
Table 3 presents land uses’ water demands and their withdrawal from
surface and groundwater resources.
3.2. Stakeholders’ system
The system’s boundary determination is the first step toward sta-
keholders’ identification. The boundary of actors indicates the man-
agement level of those actors. For instance, by considering the highest
management level in this study, considering and analyzing lower
management level stakeholders like individual gardeners and farmers is
not necessary.
To identify the main stakeholders of the study area, first, some pre-
interviews were conducted with scholars who have studied the area. By
(7)
conducting these pre-interviews, the first list of important actors was
created, and the original interviews were started. To make sure that all
the essential stakeholders are taken into account, snowball sampling
was applied (Goodman, 1961). Eventually, eleven stakeholders at the
highest management level of the study area were identified, and
structured interviews were conducted with them to gather required
information for SA and SNA (Table 4). Based on the organizational
missions and objectives, stakeholders are divided into three different
categories: protective, developing, and intermediate stakeholders.
These categories are especially important when analyzing stakeholders’
interests to assign welfare indices. For example, regarding the nature of
developing stakeholders, the sustainability of the water resources are
less important for them than protective agents, since the main objective
of developing stakeholders is to maximize their profit and productivity,
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A. Ahmadi, et al. Journal of Hydrology 589 (2020) 125138

but the main goal of protective agents is to protect the natural re- Table 6
sources. For more information about the stakeholders and their char- Water and wastewater pricing scenarios.
acteristics, readers may refer to Ahmadi et al. (2019a). Scenarios Annual water and wastewater price growth rate (relative to the base
year (i.e. 2017))

1 30%
4. Results
2 40%
3 50%
4.1. Comprehensive management scenarios

Each comprehensive management scenario consists of three cate- Table 7

gories; River-aquifer recharge by the treated wastewater scenarios.
Scenarios Percentage of the wastewater Percentage of the wastewater
1. Water and wastewater allocation scenarios allocated to Kan River recharge allocated to the aquifer recharge
2. Water and wastewater pricing scenarios
3. Scenarios related to the collection and treatment of municipal 1 0% 100%
2 25% 75%
wastewater and river-aquifer recharge by the treated wastewater
3 50% 50%
4 75% 25%
Collection and treatment of the urban wastewater in the study area 5 100% 0%
depend on the implementation of the “Urban Wastewater Collection
and Treatment Plan (UWCTP)” that is proposed by the policy-maker
stakeholders of the study area (mainly TRW). If this plan will be im- 4.2. Scenarios’ implementation and the system’s simulation
plemented, the treated wastewater can be allocated to different de-
mands. Therefore, comprehensive management scenarios can be di- After developing the management scenarios, each scenario is im-
vided into two classes: 1. Scenarios in which UWCTP is implemented, plemented in the simulation model, and the results and consequences of
and 2. Scenarios in which this plan won’t be implemented (i.e. Business the implementation of that scenario for the whole simulation period
As Usual (BAU)). If UWCTP won’t be implemented, three scenarios can (i.e. 25 years) are determined by calculating nine criteria (Table 2). The
be considered for pricing, so the second class of comprehensive sce- results of this simulation are presented in Table 8.
narios has only 3 scenarios. By assuming that UWCTP will be im-
plemented, there are four scenarios in the first category which are re- 4.3. Scenarios rank-ordering by the DSS
presented by numbers 1 to 4 (Table 5).
In the second category, there are 3 different scenarios represented After calculating the results of implementing each management
by numbers 1 to 3 (Table 6), and finally, in the third category, there are scenario in the form of nine criteria (Table 8), by means of the pre-
five scenarios shown by numbers 1 to 5 (Table 7). Therefore, there are sented DSS, the score of each scenario is calculated (Table 9). As can be
4 × 3 × 5 = 60 scenarios in the first class of comprehensive scenarios, seen, the differences between the scores are not very sharp, and it is not
and altogether, there are 60 + 3 = 63 comprehensive management surprising, because all these scenarios are selected from a pool of sce-
scenarios. narios, therefore, basically, all of them were considered suitable sce-
A three-digit number is assigned to each scenario to represent its narios, having merits over other ones. In other words, there was a pre-
three sub-scenarios. For example, scenario 2-3-5 is constituted of the selection process and based on that, these 63 suitable scenarios have
second allocation scenario (Table 5), third pricing scenario (Table 6), been chosen and implemented in the simulation model, and eventually,
and fifth recharge scenario (Table 7). compared by means of the proposed DSS. Fig. 4 shows the scores of
rank-ordered scenarios.
As can be seen in Table 9, the best management scenario chosen by
the proposed DSS is scenario 3-1-5. In this scenario, the urban plants’
Table 5
Water and wastewater allocation scenarios. wastewater will be allocated to industries, green spaces, and artificial
recharge, respectively (Table 5). It is worth mentioning that in this
Scenarios Kan River Wastewater of Wastewater of Aquifer
scenario, all the wastewater allocated to artificial recharge will be
urban treatment suburban
plants treatment
discharged to the Kan River (Table 7). In scenario 3-1-5, the annual
plants price growth rate is 30% (Table 6). In this scenario, the priority of
groundwater allocation is with drink, green space, industry, and agri-
0 (BAU) 1. Gardens UWCTP is not UWCTP is not 1. Drink culture, respectively.
2. Chitgar Lake implemented implemented 2. Greenspace
3. 3. Agriculture 3. Industry
1. Agriculture 5. Discussion
1 1. Gardens 1. Greenspace 1. Industry 1. Drink
2. Chitgar Lake 2. Industry 2. Artificial 2. Industry The first thing that can be understood from the results of the DSS is
2. Agriculture 3. Artificial recharge 3. Agriculture
that without implementing UWCTP, the conditions of the water re-
recharge 3. Greenspace
2 1. Gardens 1. Artificial 1. Artificial 1. Drink sources in the future will not be satisfactory (Table 9 and Fig. 4). In
2. Chitgar Lake recharge recharge 2. Industry other words, scenarios 0-1, 0-2, and 0-3 are the worst options. On the
3. Agriculture 2. Greenspace 2. Industry 3. Agriculture other hand, by implementing UWCTP, urban, and suburban treatment
3. Industry 4. Greenspace
plants will produce a considerable volume of reclaimed wastewater
3 1. Gardens 1. Industry 1. Industry 1. Drink
2. Chitgar Lake 2. Greenspace 2. Artificial 2. Greenspace which can be allocated to varied demands. It should be noted that this
3. Agriculture 3. Artificial recharge 3. Industry result is important in particular because on the contrary to outcomes of
recharge 4. Agriculture centralized procedures, it’s not based on the objectives and notions of a
4 1. Gardens 1. Artificial 1. Artificial 1. Drink single leader (Zabojnik, 2002; Ghodsi et al., 2016b; Zulkafli et al.,
2. Chitgar Lake recharge recharge 2. Greenspace
2017).
3. Agriculture 2. Industry 2. Industry 3. Industry
4. Greenspace 4. Agriculture As mentioned earlier, the best management scenario based on the
results of the presented DSS is scenario 3-1-5. However, as can be seen

7
A. Ahmadi, et al. Journal of Hydrology 589 (2020) 125138

Table 8
Results of implementing comprehensive management scenarios on the study area for the 25-year simulation period.
Scenarios Average water Sale of water Elevation-1 Elevation-2 Elevation-3 Nitrate-1 Nitrate-2 Nitrate-3 Cultivation (number
supply (percent) (thousand billion (meters) (meters) (meters) (mg/L) (mg/L) (mg/L) of years)
Rials)

0-1 83.53 70.2 91.41 89.74 19.44 61.4 18.1 26.4 25

0-2 89.41 77.1 101.87 84.09 18.74 57.8 19.1 27.9 15
0-3 88.07 75.3 99.68 87.54 20.64 58.4 18.5 26.2 11
1-1-1 98.52 107 88.74 93.19 27.31 31.3 11.2 23.6 25
1-1-2 98.72 107 91.47 92.26 24.39 30.8 11 23.4 25
1-1-3 98.63 108 79.56 95.36 22.00 31.6 10.5 24.2 25
1-1-4 98.21 108 76.38 93.89 25.78 31.9 10.4 20.6 25
1-1-5 97.80 110 68.00 96.55 19.69 31.6 10.3 23 25
1-2-1 98.68 109 85.62 98.53 27.77 32.1 10.9 23.5 15
1-2-2 99.03 109 95.09 91.41 24.72 30.7 11.1 24.6 15
1-2-3 98.83 109 73.76 93.66 28.41 32.7 10.7 20.7 15
1-2-4 98.97 109 81.06 94.13 15.98 30 10.6 28.8 15
1-2-5 98.31 109 64.40 93.32 24.25 32.6 10.3 21.5 15
1-3-1 99.48 110 89.52 99.33 25.07 30.9 11 25.5 11
1-3-2 99.42 110 84.68 96.51 24.25 31.2 10.9 24.6 11
1-3-3 98.83 109 81.02 97.27 20.74 31.8 10.5 26.2 11
1-3-4 99.21 110 70.71 95.08 22.81 32.3 10.4 24.1 11
1-3-5 99.20 109 74.38 88.71 23.35 30.7 10.7 22.4 11
2-1-1 97.15 93 95.28 93.14 22.12 31.3 10.9 25 25
2-1-2 97.05 92.9 86.84 94.50 21.42 31.5 10.8 24.4 25
2-1-3 96.68 93.2 84.66 93.15 23.99 31.3 10.6 22.3 25
2-1-4 95.41 93.7 66.99 99.42 21.44 32.9 10.2 23 25
2-1-5 95.13 93.4 67.19 95.55 22.67 31.8 10.2 21 25
2-2-1 97.56 94.5 99.62 94.00 24.56 30.6 11.1 24.5 15
2-2-2 97.50 94.2 89.43 92.68 26.78 31.1 10.9 22.5 15
2-2-3 95.49 92.7 75.48 102.42 12.78 32.5 10.3 22.3 15
2-2-4 97.04 94.2 77.46 91.14 23.29 31 10.7 22.6 15
2-2-5 95.17 93.8 61.28 92.05 27.14 32.6 10.4 19.8 15
2-3-1 98.66 98.3 121.65 91.23 22.72 29 11.3 26.2 11
2-3-2 97.72 94.9 92.54 91.24 27.07 31.2 11 22.9 11
2-3-3 97.39 94.5 83.23 91.88 21.67 31.3 10.9 25.3 11
2-3-4 96.15 94.2 71.51 92.35 23.12 32.2 10.6 23.3 11
2-3-5 96.21 94.2 66.19 91.02 19.54 31.7 10.6 27.4 11
3-1-1 98.79 107 90.29 93.84 26.18 31.2 11.1 23 25
3-1-2 98.71 108 85.77 94.14 22.78 31.7 10.8 24.2 25
3–1-3 98.94 108 77.02 96.21 21.43 31.2 10.6 24.4 25
3-1-4 98.48 108 85.18 94.48 21.30 29.5 10.7 23.1 25
3-1-5 98.51 108 68.42 92.25 28.23 31.3 10.5 18.5 25
3-2-1 99.15 109 75.62 99.56 27.55 33.1 10.8 22.8 15
3-2-2 99.34 109 87.02 95.25 23.39 31.1 10.8 25.1 15
3-2-3 99.14 109 84.00 94.00 21.53 30.9 10.8 24.9 15
3-2-4 98.79 109 75.77 94.03 20.71 31.6 10.5 24.8 15
3-2-5 99.02 109 74.22 90.98 20.21 30.5 10.5 24.2 15
3-3-1 99.31 110 91.29 99.23 26.39 31.3 11 23.6 11
3-3-2 99.17 109 87.81 97.00 22.00 31.1 10.8 26.1 11
3-3-3 99.41 110 75.96 96.45 24.26 32.2 10.6 23.3 11
3-3-4 99.42 110 66.20 96.88 19.20 32.7 10.4 26.5 11
3-3-5 98.86 114 82.89 89.01 18.72 29.4 10.8 28.2 11
4-1-1 96.97 92.2 91.31 94.71 25.08 32 10.8 23.3 25
4-1-2 96.00 92 85.03 95.29 26.28 32.1 10.7 21.6 25
4-1-3 97.02 92.5 84.95 95.09 18.93 30.7 10.7 25.5 25
4-1-4 96.18 92.5 76.95 95.00 23.06 31.5 10.5 21.6 25
4-1-5 95.18 92.7 63.55 97.49 21.72 32.3 10.1 21.8 25
4-2-1 97.73 93.8 100.90 92.72 25.31 30.6 11.1 23.8 15
4-2-2 97.11 93.9 92.73 91.94 26.24 31.4 10.9 22.7 15
4-2-3 96.31 92.9 74.11 97.80 19.78 32.5 10.4 26.1 15
4-2-4 97.00 93.2 71.76 84.98 18.39 31.9 10.5 26.3 15
4-2-5 96.28 92.8 66.02 91.89 24.06 32 10.4 21.1 15
4-3-1 98.21 94.3 99.98 94.73 26.34 30.7 11 24.1 11
4-3-2 97.51 93.5 93.47 92.07 25.69 30.8 11 23.8 11
4-3-3 97.52 93.6 85.27 92.05 19.14 30.8 10.9 27.6 11
4-3-4 97.12 93.3 70.79 92.71 18.86 32 10.6 26.8 11
4-‘3-5 96.55 93 64.52 91.33 19.77 32.2 10.5 25.2 11

in Table 9 and Fig. 4, the score of the best scenario is not very different
from the next high-ranked scenarios. Therefore, decision-makers using
the DSS might consider a group or family of high-ranked scenarios as
suitable management alternatives. It is worth mentioning that these
scenarios are considered the best ones, because of the utilities and
preferences of all of the stakeholders. In other words, in the selection
process of the presented DSS, all stakeholders have the right to influ-
ence the final decision; moreover, this right is according to their in-
fluencing power which is calculated precisely and systematically. By
considering more stakeholders in the presented methodology, and by
evaluating their influencing power more accurately, the final outcome
can be more exact and reliable. However, since managing water

8
A. Ahmadi, et al. Journal of Hydrology 589 (2020) 125138

Table 9 and decisions with physical characteristics of surface and groundwater

Rank-order of management scenarios based on their score values. resources has resulted in a rigorous simulation of implementing dif-
Scenario Score Scenario Score Scenario Score ferent management scenarios (Railsback et al., 2006; Schlüter & Pahl-
Wostl, 2007). For instance, in scenario 3-1-5, all the treated wastewater
3-1-5 20.62 2-1-5 18.14 2-2-4 16.50 will be allocated to the Kan River. This is not surprising, since in the
1-1-4 20.08 1-1-5 18.08 4-2-5 16.47
simulation model the interaction of surface and groundwater is taken
3-1-1 20.06 2-1-1 18.05 3-2-4 16.46
1-1-1 19.81 4-2-2 17.98 1-3-3 16.35
into account, and by recharging the river, the basin will be recharged
4-1-2 19.58 2-2-1 17.91 1-3-5 16.31 consequently.
1-2-1 19.51 2-1-4 17.89 3-2-5 16.06
1-1-2 19.39 1-2-2 17.88 2-2-3 15.94
3-2-1 19.36 2-1-2 17.87 4-2-3 15.43
6. Conclusion
3-3-1 19.29 3-2-2 17.83 2-3-4 15.33
4-1-1 19.20 4-1-5 17.81 2-3-3 15.19
3-1-4 19.11 1-3-2 17.73 3-3-4 15.13 In this research, a novel DSS based on the SCT that employs the
1-2-3 19.05 3-3-3 17.66 1-2-4 14.64 results of a systematic SA, and the insights of an SNA in its framework
3-1-2 18.83 2-3-1 17.57 4-2-4 14.60
was presented. This DSS uses the quantitative representations of the
2-1-3 18.75 2-3-2 17.55 3-3-5 14.16
1-1-3 18.65 1-2-5 17.38 4-3-3 14.11
stakeholders’ characteristics in its formulations to ensure that the final
4-1-4 18.58 4-3-2 17.13 4-3-4 13.52 decision is according to the notions and objectives of all the stake-
3-1-3 18.54 4-1-3 17.09 4-3-5 13.42 holders, not just the powerful ones. Moreover, the proposed DSS con-
1-3-1 18.40 3-2-3 17.08 2-3-5 12.79 sists of an ABM simulation model that simulates both the behavior of
2-2-2 18.22 2-2-5 17.04 0-1 7.05
the agents (i.e. stakeholders) and the physical characteristics of the
4-3-1 18.19 3-3-2 17.00 0-3 6.83
4-2-1 18.15 1-3-4 16.58 0-2 6.08 water resources in separate time steps. This model was employed to
simulate the outcomes of implementing each management alternative
(i.e. scenario) in the simulation period (25 years). As depicted in the
resources is always dealing with inherent and complicated un- flowchart of the proposed DSS (Fig. 1), it employs a variety of tools or
certainties, it can never be claimed that a management scenario is ex- sub-models in its structure.
actly the best option (Nasseri et al., 2011; Montanari et al., 2013; The presented DSS is appropriate for modeling decentralized and
Ahmadi et al., 2019b, Ahmadi and Nasseri, 2020). Nevertheless, in the multi-stakeholder management systems, especially natural resources
presented methodology of this paper, the scenarios with higher values systems that inherently consist of divergent stakeholders with various
of score can be regarded as suitable scenarios more reliably, since they and even conflicting objectives and diverse rates of influencing power.
have not been selected by a central director (i.e. dictatorship), but by a The framework of the presented methodology is flexible. For instance,
subtle consensus between all the stakeholders (Warner, 2006; Reed by considering more stakeholders, evaluation criteria, and/or man-
et al., 2009; Ribot, 2012; Basco-Carrera et al., 2017). It should be noted agement scenarios, the final results would be more accurate and reli-
that in the presented framework, quantitative characteristics of the able. Furthermore, different parts of the DSS’s framework like SA, SNA,
stakeholders are taken into account systematically, which is not done in and ABM can get more elaborated and even replaced by more detailed
previous similar studies (Kant & Lee, 2004; Kangas et al., 2006; alternatives.
Srdjevic, 2007; Mahjouri & Abbasi, 2015; Chiu et al., 2020). Due to the changing climate, developing cities and societies, and
In the presented methodology, to rank-order management scenarios, growing population, sustainable management of urban water resources
distinctive environmental, social, and economic criteria are employed. is getting more complicated every year, especially in developing regions
This multidimensional selection approach is another important aspect like the Middle East (Madani, 2014; Hameed et al., 2019). Old-fash-
of the presented DSS. By considering more criteria in distinct cate- ioned approaches to model and manage these crucial resources are not
gories, the final outcome can be assumed more trustworthy. For ex- adequate or even reliable anymore, and new procedures are needed,
ample, by implementing the best scenarios in this study (e.g. scenario 3- which are able to consider fundamental complications and un-
1-5), all 9 criteria would have an acceptable value (Table 8); therefore, certainties of the problem. Stakeholder-based methods and agent-based
the water resources management system will be more sustainable, and models are maybe some of the best options to deal with this convoluted
the stakeholders’ system will be more satisfactory and cooperative. problem and avoid a possible crisis in the future.
Employing an agent-based model coupling the stakeholders’ actions

Fig. 4. Scores of the scenarios based on their sequence in Table 9.

9
A. Ahmadi, et al.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Arman Ahmadi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - review
& editing. Reza Kerachian: Methodology, Supervision, Writing - re-
view & editing. Mohammad Javad Emami Skardi: Conceptualization,
Software, Validation, Writing - review & editing. Ali Abdolhay:
Conceptualization, Software, Validation.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
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