Author(s): Ioanna V. Anyfanti; George P. Karatzas; Emmanouil Varouchakis; Paraskevas Diakoparaskevas
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Abstract: The Mediterranean region has come up against the impacts of climate change during the last decades: increase of mean temperature and decrease of precipitation. In combination with the tendency of urbanization and augmentation in the needs of agri-food products, it causes direct and indirect increase in the water demand. Also, the anthropogenic pressure on surface water and groundwater sources has been intensified, as well. In many cases, beside the overexploitation, the coastal aquifers face the saltwater intrusion problem, which could limit even more the groundwater resources Limited sources and augmented needs lead to competitiveness among the different water uses and the related stakeholders, respectively. At this point, conflicting issues could be mediated by using decision support systems by enabling the assessment of different alternative solutions based on mutually agreed, predetermined criteria, thus leading to transparency and rationalism in the decision – making process. The current work discusses the development of an innovative tool for decision aiding, considering social, economic, and environmental criteria using a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS). The system is being developed based on the Tympaki coastal aquifer study site, in Crete, Greece. Each one of the considered criteria is separately approached with the suitable method: a cost – benefit analysis is elaborated for the social and economic criteria and the multi-objective optimization technique is applied for the maximization of the well pumping rates subjected to a specified value for the hydraulic head level at the observation locations to mitigate saltwater intrusion, which is considered as the environmental criterion. An issue of great importance that is raised is the heterogeneity that characterizes the criteria and the FIS is considered as a possible way to combine them in the same scale of measurement.
Year: 2022