Managing conflicts in water resources allocation

111 Pages·2012·2.57 MB·English

by  Shohreh Oloumi Zad

Managing
Conflicts in
Water Resources
Allocation
A sustainable water allocation for Urumia Lake

Basin in Iran

Shohreh Oloumi Zad

MANAGING CONFLICTS IN WATER RESOURCES ALLOCATION
A sustainable water allocation for Urumia lake Basin in Iran

Master Thesis
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in
Management of Technology at Delft University of Technology

By
Shohreh Oloumi Zad
4037235

Graduation committee:
Chairman: Dr. W. Ravesteijn
Head of Section Technology Dynamics & Sustainable Development
First supervisor: Dr. J.O. Kroesen
Assistant professor, Section Technology Dynamics & Sustainable Development
Second supervisor: Dr. L. Hermans
Assistant professor, Section Policy Analysis

External supervisor: Prof. E. van Beek
Water Resources Specialist at Deltares

Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management
Section of Technology Dynamics & Sustainable Development
Delft University of Technology
June 2012

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The need for water allocation is growing because of increase in water demand on the one side
and decrease in water availability on the other side. As a consequence managing conflicts
becomes important because of participation of the stakeholders with different interests in the
process of water allocation. This research aims to contribute to the development of a roadmap
towards a sustainable water allocation for Urumia Lake Basin in Iran with focus on managing
conflicts. To achieve the objective, the following research question is formulated:
How to create a sustainable water resources allocation situation for Lake Urumia?
Large Technical Systems approach, a system approach, has been used to structure data gained
from different sources including previous researches, PhD dissertations, interviews and field
visit. The aim of using this approach is to clarify the problem at first, to provide a clear
picture from the region at second and finally to identify the conflicting claims.
The problem in the region is that the water demand is not in balance with water supply. The
increase in water use without considering the need of the lake and its wetlands and decrease
in precipitation due to prolonged droughts resulted in drop in the lake water level. This has
negatively affected the ecological values of the lake and its wetlands.
The region is divided between three provinces of East Azarbaijan, West Azarbaijan, and
Kurdistan. Agriculture is the main water user in this basin. The suitability of the region for
farming and the governmental support after the Iraq-Iran war to be self-sufficient in strategic
crops have led to extensive development in East and West Azarbaijan. Kurdistan, however,
has started its development more recently. The provinces consider the environmental
conservation incompatible with economic growth. But if the current condition continues, it
will result in further social, economic, and environmental problems. Therefore, the provinces
need to reduce their water uses in order to provide the adequate water to the lake and its
wetlands.
An integrated water management plan has been developed and approved in 2008.
Furthermore, water has been allocated based on a potential runoff of 6.9 billion cubic meters
between three provinces in the basin and the lake. A minimum amount of 3.17 billion cubic
meters has also been formalized as water rights of the lake. Considering the potential runoff,
water rights of the lake and the current consumption there is no shortage of water. But, there
is not enough water for a further increase in water demand.
However, the drop in water level indicates that the lake did not get enough water for several
years. This means that the surface runoff was much less than what has been considered. A
more realistic runoff in the region has been calculated to be 5 billion cubic meters. In this
case, West Azarbaijan has to decrease its water consumption and cancel its further
development as well. East Azarbaijan has to also cancel its further development. But,
Kurdistan can still continue its development. So, conflicting claims remain on who reduces
its consumption and how much. 24 executive plans have been developed to provide part of
the water for the lake. There are also some projects for transferring about 0.9 billion cubic

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meters water from other regions. Currently, a negotiation process is taking place to allocate
water during droughts.
A graph model for conflict resolution has been selected in this stage to study the behavior of
actors involved in order to find out the possible outcome of the process. For verification, the
model has been applied to two previous negotiation processes. The results gained from the
model were the same as what happened in reality. The case to which model has been applied
was the implementation of the 24 executive plans.
The result from application of the model for the executive plans indicates that provinces of
East and West Azarbaijan will start with bringing water from another region and managing
their water inflow. Kurdistan, however, will use the water saved from implementation of the
executive plans for its further development. To motivate the provinces for taking actions for
reducing their usage, three strategies were proposed.
First, the department of environment can prohibit the industries that have high impact either
on quality or quantity of water if they do not take any action for reducing their consumption.
Second, the ministry of agriculture can influence the preferences of farmers for cultivating
crops that need less water. This can be done by: a. participation of farmers in the process of
decision making for modifying the pattern of crops, b. guarantee the sale of those farmers
who change to a crop that requires less water, and c. advertise for crops which need less
water through media and supermarkets. Third, ministry of energy can motivate industries or
farmers to reduce their water by changing regulations due to the current problem. For
example, different water tariff rates for users because of the critical situation will motivate
them to take some actions for using water more efficiently.
Finally, to develop a roadmap, the current strains on the water allocation situation have been
identified. Then, the ideal situations are defined and finally actions for achieving the
objectives have been described. The main limitation of this work is its focus in general level
and therefore it has been recommended to apply the graph model for conflict in one of the
provinces, one river, or one sector.

Keywords: LTS approach, graph model for conflict resolution, sustainable water resources
allocation, Lake Urumia

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. W. Ravesteijn for his guidance. His constant
support and patience helped me to find my way through the difficulties at the beginning of
my thesis. His comprehensive attitude on my work helped me to obtain the required skills for
doing a research.
Special thanks to prof. E. van Beek for helping me to choose my topic and bringing me in
contact with Mahab Ghoddss, the company gave me the case study, and many more contacts
to get information and conduct interviews. He also helped me to understand the case and
technical concepts in water management as it was a new field for me. Without his help it was
impossible to get the appropriate information.
I would like to extend my gratitude to Dr. L. Hermans, who supported me during my thesis.
His critical point of view regarding the choices of my methods and his guidance on defining
and analyzing conflicts provided valuable contributions to my project.
Also thanks to Dr. O. Kroesen, for his feedbacks which helped me to think out of box in
order to find the solution especially when I was puzzled before going for my second field
visit to Iran.
Many thanks to all the people in Iran, who gave me information, helped me to conduct
interviews or participated in my interviews. Special thanks to Dr. Salavitabr, Dr. Hashemi,
Mr Arabour, Dr. Nazaridoust, and Dr. Morid. It would be impossible to conduct the
interviews without help and support of them.
At last, but not least, my very special thanks goes to my husband, Onno, who not only
supported me achieving the dream of studying master, but also inspired me to do my thesis in
water management by continuously talking about water. Without his support I could not
organize my second field visit in Iran; and thanks to my family, family in law, and friends for
keeping me motivated and calming down me in stressful times.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Problem statement ................................................................................................... 2
1.2. Research objective and research question ................................................................ 6
1.3. Methodology ........................................................................................................... 6
1.4. Relevance ............................................................................................................... 8
1.5. Structure ................................................................................................................. 8
2. A Sustainable Water Allocation Regime for ULB ........................................................ 11
2.1. The critical situation of Urumia Lake .................................................................... 12
2.2. Increasing demand for water ................................................................................. 14
2.3. Decreasing water availability ................................................................................ 15
2.4. Towards a sustainable water allocation regime in ULB ......................................... 16
3. Scientific Background and Methodology ..................................................................... 21
3.1. Socio-technical systems approach ......................................................................... 21
3.2. Review on conflict analysis methods ..................................................................... 23
3.2.1. Criteria for choosing the graph model for conflict resolution .......................... 28
3.3. Methodology ......................................................................................................... 29
3.3.1. Research approach and strategy...................................................................... 29
3.3.2. Data collection methods and sources .............................................................. 30
4. Urumia Lake Basin ...................................................................................................... 37
4.1. System’s components ............................................................................................ 37
4.1.1. Nature ............................................................................................................ 37
4.1.2. Hardware ....................................................................................................... 40
4.1.3. Orgware ......................................................................................................... 44
4.1.4. Software ........................................................................................................ 50
4.2. Interaction between system components ................................................................ 51
4.3. System’s environment ........................................................................................... 53
4.3.1. Social environment ........................................................................................ 54
4.3.2. Natural environment ...................................................................................... 57
5. Graph Model for Conflict Resolution........................................................................... 59
5.1. First phase_ an integrated water management plan ................................................ 59
5.2. Second phase_ water allocation for the lake .......................................................... 63
5.3. Third phase_ providing water for the lake ............................................................. 65

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6. Conclusions and recommendations .............................................................................. 71
6.1. Scientific contribution ........................................................................................... 76
6.2. Recommendations for practitioners ....................................................................... 77
6.3. Limitations ............................................................................................................ 78
6.4. Future research...................................................................................................... 79
References .......................................................................................................................... 81
Appendices ......................................................................................................................... 87
Appendix A: CIWP Management Plan-version 2010 ....................................................... 87
Appendix B: Interview protocol and summary of interviews ........................................... 97
Interview part 1 ............................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Interview part 2 ............................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

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