Two WEAP workshops were held in IRAN during the month of October 2011. One at
the University of Science and Technology in capital city of Tehran and the other at the
Regional Water Authority of Golestan province in the provincial city of Gorgan located in the northern part
of Iran near the Caspian Sea. There were about 60 participants in the Tehran Workshop, and about
30 in Gorgan Workshop. The participants at both Workshops were graduate students,
water resources engineers from the government sector (Ministry of Power) and private
consulting firms, as well as a few academics. The gender make up was about 60% male and
40% female.
Both workshops covered the areas of building WEAP network schematics, data structures,
building water supply and demand scenarios, catchment hydrology, water quality
(Temp, DO, BOD and Salinity, first-order decay, wastewater treatment plants), groundwater
aquifers, reservoir operation and hydropower generation and dynamic linkages to MODFLOW
and QUAL2K, GIS and Google Earth. It generated a lot of interest in the area of Catchment
hydrology and its application to climate change, reservoir operation and hydropower. The interest
at the Golestan province was so much that the Regional Water Authority a few days later arranged for
a special session with water officials to discuss water issues in the Province and the need to develop
an integrated and comprehensive Regional Water Plan using analytical tools like WEAP.
At the end of each Workshop, students and participants were given a "Class Project" assignment.
The purpose was that each participant apply the knowledge gained from the Workshop to start to
develop an actual WEAP network of their own region on a small scale. This could become a starting point
for a student’s research project or evolve into a Regional project on a much larger scale.
Both workshops were very well organized and well prepared with special thanks to the Workshop Coordinator
and Technical Assistant Mr. Behzad Sharif of Mahsab Shargh Consulting Firm, Tehran, Iran.
Instructor: Dr. Mohammad Rayej, California Dept. of Water Resources, Sacramento, California
Acknowledgements: We would also like to thank the following professionals for their technical help
and material support during the Workshops: Dr. Abbas Afshar (Iran University of Science and Technology),
Mr. Reza Salimian (Mahsab Shargh Consulting Firm, Tehran), Mr. Saeed Rezaei (Graduate student
of Azad University, Tehran), and Mr. Hassan Azarmdel (Regional Water Authority of Golestan Province, Gorgan).
