Solution to the Water Crisis in the Zayandehrud River Basin; Joint Supply and Demand Management

In the last decade, the instability of flow in Zayandehrud River and increasing drawdown of groundwater in Zayandehrud aquifers have caused serious concerns for the public, decision makers and water managers at provincial and national levels. Therefore, investigating the causes of the crisis, the ways to create a stable flow in the Zayandehrud River, and to prevent the loss of groundwater resources are the issues that have been raised to all levels of decisionmaking at provincial and national extents. In this paper, the changes in water resources and the demands in the basin scale are investigated in order to provide non-structural and structural solutions for the sustainable management of the river basin and especially the sustainable flow in the Zayandehrud River. The study also presented prioritizations for putting demand management on agricultural, industrial and drinking water demands. Overall, the interbasin water transfer to the Zayandehrud basin in current state is considered as the necessary condition and the demand management is presented as the sufficient condition.