Introduction

Abstract

The present study tried to achieve three objectives. The first objective is to develop an indicator to represent the real situation of water availability in different locations as a function of urbanization, climate and water quality. The indicator will consider the temporal variation of its input parameters and water quality parameters. The second objective was to identify the priority values of the input parameters to differentiate the input variables with respect to its sensitivity to the amount of consumable fresh water. The last aim of the investigation was to find the impact of urbanization on water availability under different climatic scenarios. To achieve all three objectives, Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was used to develop the index after the input parameters were identified with the help of literature, expert and stakeholders survey. ANN was selected for its predictive ability under non-linear and complex situations. A new MCDM method, Ensemble Analytical Hierarchy Process and Fuzzy Logic was utilized for decision making about the importance of selected parameters and determination of the priority values. Three study areas having three different densities of urban population was selected. Climate change scenarios A2 and B2 as proposed by Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was considered to represent the climatic situations where the values of the climatic parameters was predicted by Climate Models. For each scenario, the index value was estimated for three different time slabs (2010–2030, 2031–2070 and 2071–2100).