Environmental Researches

Environmental Researches

Water Security Assessment in Caspian Sea Basin

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 Ph.D. Candidate, School of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2 Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law, Theology and Political Science, Sciences and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Terhan, Iran
10.22034/eiap.2025.216584
Abstract
In today's world, water security is a national security isuue. In Iran, among environmental issues, water as "blue gold" has gained security dimensions more than in the previous time, and of course, it is not constrained to the dry and semi-arid provinces of the country. The purpose of this study is to calculate water security status in Caspian Sea basin with aim of policy making and providing strategies to enhance environmental security in vulnerable regions. The six key dimensions covering Water resource security, Urban water security, Economic water security, Environmental water security, Resilience to water related disasters and water resource dependency have been used to analyze water security performances. Based on available information, indices for six dimensions have been gathered and two methods of AHP and ANP have been applied to obtain the weight of water security indices. Two methods gave almost similar scores. However, scores from ANP are more reliable compared with AHP. The results show that water security in Caspian Sea basin is of critical concern. The dimensions of environment and water related disasters have the lowest and highest scores in Iran, respectively. After environmental water security, the lowest scores were related to economic and water dependency security.
Keywords
Subjects

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