davoud najafyan

Due to the water crisis, drought, population increase, and lack of conventional water resources, the use of new technologies to use unconventional water and manage consumption in different sectors is highly needed. In the present study, the factors affecting the success and failure of technological research in the water industry in Iran were analyzed with the aim of identifying the reasons for not applying of the country's water technological projects, inventions, and research. To provide effective solutions to strengthen the success and prevent the failure of water technologies, 15 questionnaires based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) were completed by experts, experienced, knowledgeable, and proficient in the subject in the autumn and winter of 2022 and the results analyzed in the spring of 2023. According to the purpose of the study, the hierarchical structure included four technical, economic, social, and environmental criteria, each of which had four sub-criteria. After completing the questionnaires, the weights of criteria and sub-criteria were determined using Expert Choice software. To measure the accuracy of completed questionnaires, the inconsistency rate was calculated and equaled 0.09, which was less than the limit (0.1). The examination of the final weight of each of the sub-criteria showed that the first to third rank among all the investigated factors in the four main criteria, respectively, the ease of repair sub-criteria (S1) of the technical criteria with a final weight of 0.243, useful life (S4) from the technical criteria with a weight of 0.158 and the operation and maintenance cost (W4) from the economic criteria with a weight of 0.120. In general, the first two factors in the technical criteria and the superior factor in the economic criteria play a role as the most effective factors in the effectiveness of strengthening the success and preventing the failure of water technologies.

Investigations show that the developed technologies and inventions developed in different sectors of water (drinking, industry, and agriculture) are not used in the implementation position as they should be. Therefore, it is necessary to scrutinize the existing problems and provide remedial solutions for the introduction of new technologies in the water industry. For this purpose, 10 of the most important technologies, innovations, inventions, projects, and practical ideas for the country's water sector were identified from among the 70 selected technologies. Then, this questionnaire was completed by 15 people who are experts, experienced, knowledgeable and proficient in the subject in the spring and summer of 2022. Cronbach's alpha test was used to measure the reliability of the questionnaires and its value for different parts of the questionnaire (strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat) was between 0.85-1, which is approved. Then the internal and external analysis of each technology was done using the SWOT analytical tool and the best strategy for each technology was introduced. The classification of the top and most frequent factors in each of the four sections based on the results of the 10 discussed technologies indicated that the option of increasing efficiency and significant water saving (S1) from the strengths section, became the most important option with ranked first 7 times. The high cost of design, construction, or execution (W1) from the weak points with 7, Changing the approach of the country's macro policies and adopting new technology (O3), and water storage, the ability to develop and sustain the country's water and food security (O4) from the opportunity points with 3, and as well as the short-term impact of technology and future problems related to it (T1), administrative bureaucracy and the lack of acceleration of the process of patenting and technology use (T2), and low economic-technical efficiency and exit from the application cycle (T5) from the threat points with 3 times placing in the first place, were the most important choices of each section. Also, the pathology of the factors of success and failure of technologies showed that the strong point of localization of technology and inventions of the water industry and the production of reliable data (S5), the weak point of problems related to the lack of ease of use (W3), the opportunity point of developing technical knowledge and transferring science to other countries (O1), and the threat point of low economic-technical efficiency and exit from the application cycle (T5) were identified as the least important factors with 4, 4, 4 and 5 times placing in the fifth place, respectively.