Journal of Watershed Management Research

     Main part of Iran is in arid and semi-arid region and water is a limiting factor of human activities in this area. One of the ways to overcome seasonal shortages of water is using groundwater. Underground dam is a storage methods and use of groundwater that it can be used to improve water resources management and increase utilities of these resources. In this study, It has been tried to identify the most effective locations for the construction of underground dams in the watershed of Alashtar by combing GIS and multi criteria decision systems. For this purpose, were prepared data of 8 affecting parameters were prepared slope, geology, land use, geomorphology units, faults, streams, wells and residential areas in studied area by GIS. Weight of each criterion and weight classes of each layer was calculated by ANP method and paired comparison in Super Decision software. In next stage, restricted areas were removed. Then each of the defined criteria was classified for area using the GIS analytical functions. At the end, the final map was prepared in five classes from very good to poor by combination of zoning maps based on the weight of the ANP method. Results indicated that 15% of the study area is very suitable, 11% suitable, %18 elatively suitable, %37 unsuitable and %19 relatively unsuitable.