Site Selection Underground Dams Using Spatial Multi-Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) (Case Study: the Adori Area in Bam city)

One of the effective ways to provide water in the arid, semi-arid and drought crisis is rising the groundwater stores. Underground dams are one of the best strategies for securing and development of water resources. The first and most important step in the construction of an underground dam is identifying suitable locations for the construction of these dams. Making decision about the site selection of the underground dam is difficult because several criteria must be considered in this choice. The purpose of this study is to select the underground dam site for storing precipitation and preventing evaporation in the Adori area in Bam city by using spatial multi-criteria evaluation (SMCE). The selected evaluation criteria include: (1) Economic and social criteria (including distance to aqueduct - distance to well - distance to village - distance to spring - distance to road - distance to rock source), (2) Hydrology (including precipitation isolines - rivers), (3) Geology (including topography (slope) - Geology - geomorphology - permeability), and (4) Constraints (including slope - fault - aqueduct – land use - geology - distance to river). The maps were first prepared in the ILWIS software, standardize with SMCE menu, and weighted by ranking method. Finally, the integrated map was prepared which shows three regions with different values. One of these three areas, which have the best value, was suggested for the construction of underground dam in the Adori area in Bam city.