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Integrated strategic planning and multi-criteria decision-making framework with its application to agricultural water management

Sustainable water resources management involves social, economic, environmental, water use, and resources factors. This study proposes a new framework of strategic planning with multi-criteria decision-making to develop sustainable water management alternatives for large scale water resources systems. A fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making model is developed to rank regional management alternatives for agricultural water management considering water-resources sustainability criteria. The decision-making model combines hierarchical analysis and the fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). The management alternatives were presented spatially in the form of zoning maps at the level of irrigation zones of the study area. The results show that the irrigation management zone No.3 (alternative A3) was ranked first based on agricultural water demand and supply management in five among seven available scenarios, in which the scenarios represents a possible combination of weights assigned to the weighing criteria. Specifically, the results show that irrigation management zone No.3 (alternative A3) achieved the best ranking values of 0.151, 0.169, 0.152, 0.174 and 0.164 with respect to scenarios 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7, respectively. However, irrigation management zone No.2 (alternative A2) achieved the best values of 0.152 and 0.150 with respect to the second and third scenarios, respectively. The model results identify the best management alternatives for agricultural water management in large-scale irrigation and drainage networks.

Water management is becoming more challenging by the effects of climate change, population growth, and severe competition for water by the municipal, agricultural, industrial, and energy sectors 3,13,20,24,57 . Accordingly, integrated water resources management focuses on water demand and supply management to achieve sustainable development. Water is a scarce resource essential for societal survival and functioning. This makes the application of integrated water resources management essential to cope with scarcity and the challenges posed by climate change and increased water demand to by expanding economies 26 . A conceptual framework combining integrated landscape management (ILM) and institutional design principles (IDP) perspectives was applied to analyze cooperation initiatives involving water suppliers and agricultural stakeholders from agricultural wastewater 5 . A national drought risk assessment for agricultural lands taking into account the complex interaction between different risk components was presented 40 . The research showed that crop diversification, crop pattern management, and conjunctive (i.e., surface water and groundwater) water management can be effective in improving agricultural water 18,48 .
The management of today's complex water supply and demand systems rely on assessment models combining climatic, social, economic, and environmental factors. A model was developed using the concept of risk by identifying hazards, exposure, and vulnerability 34 . The vulnerability was classified into two domains, i.e., sensitivity and adaptive capacity, and two spheres, natural/built environment and human environment. A geographical information system modeling and satellite data were developed for water management in agricultural areas by modulating the irrigation water demand based on several vegetation indices 2 . The water allocation rules were evaluated among water user groups considering environmental, economic, and social criteria involving agricultural water user groups across France 51 . Transferring of irrigation management was defined as the complete or partial transfer of responsibility for management and investment in irrigation systems from government www.nature.com/scientificreports/ system considering social, economic and environmental factors. The framework applies conceptual and analytical methods to sustainable agricultural water management relying on strategic planning and regional multi-criteria decision-making. Previous works have evaluated the sustainability of water resources from different perspectives and methods. This study is novel in its introduction of a framework that measures the sustainability of large-scale agricultural water systems relying on regional management plans.

Method
This section presents the conceptual framework for agricultural water demand and supply management and explains how to apply the conceptual framework for developing regional management alternatives (see Fig. 1). It is seen in Fig. 1 that the conceptual framework consists of two steps, namely, strategic planning and determining the regional priorities, which are explained below. Previous studies have established that entrenched challenges to water resources planning and management are common 8 . Effective implementation of integrated water policies is not common, and has led to a policy implementation gap that leads to incapacity in translating policy into action 7 . This work contributes to closing that gap.
Strategic planning. The main purpose of strategic planning is to identify and analyze internal factors (strengths and weaknesses), external factors (opportunities and threats), and to formulate management alternatives for sustainable development of agricultural water management. The strategic planning stage considers agricultural water use and sources, social, environmental, and economic issues. The evaluation of the internal and external factors and determining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and the current status of water resources leads to the formulation of sustainable agricultural water management plans, which is the basis for determining the regional priorities in the form of regional management alternatives.
Determining regional priorities based on multi-criteria decision models. Spatial multi-criteria decision making analysis integrates spatial and non-spatial data and incorporates them in the decision-making process. This is accomplished by defining the relationship between input and output maps where by the spatial data and the priorities of the decision makers are accounted for and analyzed according to the rules of decision  www.nature.com/scientificreports/ making 39 . The selected management alternatives defined in the first stage are formulated as a set of regional management alternatives for sustainable development of agricultural water management. Notice therefore that the output of the first stage is a set of management alternatives for sustainable development of agricultural water management, which constitutes the basis for defining regional management alternatives in the second stage. The management alternatives can be structural, non-structural, or a combination of both, which are addressed in terms of water demand and supply management.
Multi-criteria analysis of regional management alternatives for agricultural water demand and supply. This work implements multi-criteria decision making models to prioritize the irrigation management zones in terms of regional management alternatives for agricultural water demand and supply management. The proposed model implemented to prioritize the irrigation management zones is a combination of hierarchical analysis and the TOPSIS in a fuzzy environment.

Study area
The study area is the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network, Iran, with an area of 284,000 hectares (Fig. 2). The irrigation network is divided into three irrigation management zones, namely, the Markazi, Fumanat, and Shargh irrigation zones, which are divided into 17 irrigation units, 10 of which have modern irrigation and 7 have traditional irrigation system. There are about 300,000 water users in the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network and the main crop of the irrigation network is rice. About 94% of the total cultivated agricultural land is dedicated to rice fields. The main source of water supply for the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network is Sefidroud Dam. There are other sources of water for the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network, such as local rivers, farm wastewater, small irrigation reservoirs, and groundwater. The Sefidroud irrigation network covers parts of three rivers basins in Iran, and is located in the downstream area of Sefidroud river basin. The Sefidroud basin covers eight provinces of Iran where there are regional conflicts concerning the management of the Sefidroud irrigation network.

Results and application of the approach
This section describes the following topics: www.nature.com/scientificreports/ • Analysis and evaluation of agricultural water use and resources in the study area.
• Study and analysis of internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and threats) related to agricultural water management in the study area. • Determining the regional management alternatives of agricultural water demand and supply management.
• Multi-criteria analysis of the regional management alternatives of agricultural water demand and supply management.
Analysis and evaluation of agricultural water use. The type of available water resources (Sefidroud network, local rivers, drainage, small irrigation reservoirs and groundwater resources), the crop pattern and quality of soil and water sources vary throughout the study area. Therefore, a database of water-use statistics was prepared to estimate the water use by agricultural lands within the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network. The water use in the agricultural lands is a function of various factors such as the type of water resources, the method of water conveyance and distribution, the irrigation method, the type of crop products, climatic conditions, soil type, management practice, and others. Therefore, estimating the amount of water use in the agricultural areas in the study area is beset by complexity (Fig. 3). The inputs to the agricultural water use model are (a) the cultivated area and crop pattern of irrigated lands, (b) the crop water requirements, (c) the irrigation efficiencies and (d) the surface and ground water withdrawal data. The agricultural water use analytical model calculates water use in each irrigation unit by comparing the water requirements of the crop pattern with the water withdrawals of surface water and groundwater. The outputs from this model are actual water use, the contributions of surface and groundwater to water use and the volumes of return flow.
The details of agricultural water use from different water sources (i.e., the Sefidroud dam and its related channels, local rivers, farm wastewater, small irrigation reservoirs, and groundwater) within the irrigated units of the Sefidroud irrigation network are depicted in Fig. 4 and listed in Table 1 for three irrigation management zones. It can be seen in Table 1     www.nature.com/scientificreports/ under the management of Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network are considered internal factors and the others are considered external factors. The main internal and external factors related to agricultural water management in the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network are presented in Table 2.
Determining the management alternatives for agricultural water demand and supply management. The management alternatives to improve the agricultural water demand and supply management in the irrigation management zones in the study area were determined to be: (1) Development/Rehabilitation of the Sefidroud irrigation network; (2) Improve the management of operation and maintenance of the Sefidroud irrigation network; (3) Wastewater management, and (4) Inter-basin water transfer within the Sefidroud irrigation network system (see Table 3). The spatial distribution of the management alternatives within the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network were defined according to the management alternatives for agricultural water demand and supply management, and are shown in Figs. 5, 6, 7 and 8.
Under current conditions the management alternative of development/rehabilitation of the Sefidroud irrigation network's infrastructure has not been fully implemented. Accordingly, completion and implementation of the main irrigation and drainage network in about 90,000 hectares represents one of the most important priorities in the Sefidroud irrigation network. Carrying out this management alternative would raise the irrigation efficiencies of the Sefidroud irrigation network. Furthermore, in spite of the implementation of the main irrigation and drainage network in 10 irrigation units of the Sefidroud irrigation network, the rehabilitation of the irrigation network in 102,000 hectares is imperative to achieve operational effectiveness. Figure 5 displays the spatial distribution of development and rehabilitation lands in Sefidroud irrigation network.
One of the effective management alternatives for maximum use of internal water resources in the study area is using the natural potential of small irrigation reservoirs existing in the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network. www.nature.com/scientificreports/   www.nature.com/scientificreports/ The spatial distribution of small irrigation reservoirs is depicted in Fig. 6. It is seen in Fig. 6 that the total number of small irrigation reservoirs in the study area for agricultural water supply is equal to 527, and the total area of the small irrigation reservoirs is 4935 hectares. The total volume of stored water in small irrigation reservoirs is estimated at 197 million cubic meters under the rehabilitation and improvement conditions.

Multi-criteria analysis of agricultural water demand and supply management.
A fuzzy multicriteria decision model was implemented to evaluate the agricultural water demand and supply management alternatives. The prioritization of the regional management alternatives in the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network, which includes the Markazi, Fumanat, and Shargh irrigation zones, is accomplished with hierarchical analysis methods 56 and the TOPSIS decision-making method in a fuzzy environment, which consists of the following stages 14 : • Determining appropriate criteria for the decision-making process.
• Calculations related to the hierarchical analysis process.
• Evaluating the alternatives using the fuzzy TOPSIS model, and determining the final prioritization of alternatives.
The alternatives and criteria for decision making are determined and a hierarchical structure is formed. The hierarchical structure has a first level consisting of goals to be achieved, the second level consists of the decision criteria, and the third level consists of the management alternatives.
The weights of the criteria are determined by the hierarchical analysis method once the hierarchical structure is defined, which involves constructing a pairwise comparison matrix to determine the weights. The comparison matrix's values are determined using Saaty's table 55 , and the weights of the criteria are calculated based on the geometric mean values. The next step applies the fuzzy TOPSIS algorithm to evaluate the management alternatives in each of the irrigation management zones of the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network. Lastly, the management alternatives are prioritized. The prioritization uses language variables to evaluate the management alternatives. The fuzzy TOPSIS calculates the CC j indexes of the management alternatives, such that the alternatives' rank or desirability increases with increasing value of the CC j index. The CC j index is a dimensionless metric in the range [0,1] that measures the closeness of a management alternative to an ideal management alternative or solution 29 . www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Identifying the effective criteria in the decision-making process. The decision criteria are of central importance for evaluating the agricultural water demand and supply management alternatives. All the factors that are considered influential in the sustainable management of agricultural water must be studied. The decision criteria are studied separately for each of the irrigation management zones of the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network to enable accurate decisions representing zonal conditions. Recall that three irrigation management zones of Sefidroud irrigation network are considered. The identified criteria are listed in Table 4.
Evaluating the weights of the decision-making criteria and determining the final ranking of the management alternatives. The criteria listed in Table 4 were classified into four categories: C1 social criteria, C2 economic criteria, C3 environmental criteria, and C4 water consumption and resources management criteria. The calculated weights of the criteria are depicted in Fig. 9. The matrix of weighted fuzzy decision making was calculated using the weights of criteria obtained with the AHP method (Table 5). It is seen in Table 5 that the management alternatives A1 through A3 represent the management alternatives in the irrigation management zones, and C1 through C4 denote the decision-making criteria. Table 5 (1, 1, 1) , respectively, for the cost criteria. All the criteria used in this work to rank of the agricultural water management alternatives are benefit criteria. The distance between the alternatives and the positive (D*) and negative (D − ) ideals, and the CC j indices are computed with TOPSIS 14 . The calculation results for the CC j index are listed in Table 6, where it is seen that alternative A3 (Fumanat irrigation zone) with CC j index equivalent to 0.151 is selected as a first priority (top rank) as an agricultural water-demand and supply-management regional management alternative. The lowest priority (bottom rank) of alternatives based on the CC j index is listed in Table 6. The prioritizing of other alternatives based on CC j values is also shown in Fig. 10. www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Sensitivity analysis. The end product of the multi-criteria analysis process consists of proposing an alternative or a set of alternatives for implementation. Sensitive numerical inputs that may have a major impact on the final decision (i.e., the ranking of alternatives) must be identified. The purpose of sensitivity analysis is to determine how the proposed alternatives are affected by changes in inputs (i.e., criteria weights). This analysis evaluates the robustness, or lack of it, of the proposed solution. The sensitivity analysis is performed by changing the weights of the decision making criteria. There are seven combinations of the weights, each defining a weighting scenario, which are listed in Table 7. The results of the sensitivity analysis of the model are listed in Table 7 and Fig. 11. The values of the criteria weights, which are determined from multi-criteria analysis, are listed in Table 7 and Fig. 11. The CC j values corresponding to the six weighing scenarios are listed in Table 7. CC 23 , for example, represents a scenario in which the weights of the second and third criteria are changed. It can be seen in Table 7 that the sixth scenario, in which the weights of the second and fourth criteria are changed, establishes that alternative A3 (Fumanat irrigation zone) has the largest CC j value equal to 0.174 compared to its initial value of 0.151. The scenario, in which the weight of the third and fourth criteria are changed, establishes that alternative A1 (Markazi irrigation zone) has the larger CC j value equal to 0.163 compared to its initial value of 0.145. Also, the second scenario, in which the weight of the first and second criteria are changed, indicates that alternative A2 (Shargh irrigation zone) has the largest CC j value equal to 0.152 compared to the initial value of 0.50.

Concluding remarks
This work develops and applies a conceptual framework of strategic planning and multi-criteria decision making for sustainable agricultural water management. Also an analytical model for estimating agricultural water use based on multiple factors was developed. The results of the agricultural water use analysis and the identification of internal and external factors affecting the management of agricultural water resources led to defining regional management alternatives for agricultural water demand and supply. Decision making involves the use of a method that accounts for uncertainty within the decision-making process. Hence, a model of decision making with regard to the alternatives (the irrigation management zones of the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network) was developed based on four water resources sustainability criteria: social, economic, environmental, and water use resource management. The presented framework combines the method of analytical hierarchy and the fuzzy TOPSIS, which permits taking into account the effect of the criteria weights in multi-criteria decision making. The study's results showed that alternative A3 (the Fumanat irrigation zone) was top ranked (first priority) among other irrigation zones as the best regional management alternative. The sensitivity analysis results have demonstrated that in five among seven scenarios the Fumanat     www.nature.com/scientificreports/   www.nature.com/scientificreports/ irrigation zone was ranked first with respect to regional management alternatives for agricultural water demand and supply. The framework developed in this work can be applied to other large scale water resources system in which regional differentiation is essential for sustainable water management.

Data availability
All relevant data are included in the paper or its supplementary information. www.nature.com/scientificreports/