The Qasabeh Qanat of Gonabad, recognized as one of the most remarkable examples of ancient hydraulic engineering and inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, represents a unique socio‑hydrological heritage system that has functioned continuously for centuries in the arid landscapes of northeastern Iran. As one of the oldest and deepest qanat systems in the world, it demonstrates an extraordinary human capacity to adapt to harsh environmental conditions through sustainable water management practices. The Qasabeh Qanat is considered a “living heritage system,” whose survival depends not only on the preservation of its physical structure but also on the continuity of traditional knowledge, effective governance mechanisms, and the ecological balance of the aquifer that sustains it. However, in recent decades, this historic infrastructure has faced increasingly complex and interconnected challenges resulting from environmental change, socio-economic transformation, and evolving management structures. Climate change, prolonged droughts, unsustainable groundwater extraction, demographic shifts, and weakening traditional maintenance systems have collectively intensified pressures on the qanat’s integrity and functionality. Despite its global significance, there remains a critical lack of a comprehensive and systematic risk management framework tailored specifically to socio-hydrological heritage systems such as qanats. Addressing this gap, the present study develops an integrated risk management framework for the Qasabeh Qanat of Gonabad aimed at identifying, classifying, and prioritizing the major risks threatening its Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) while proposing a structured and time-bound strategy for its long-term conservation and sustainable management.
This study is applied in terms of its objective and descriptive-analytical in its methodological approach. The research adopts a hybrid methodological framework grounded in the principles of the ISO 31000 international standard for risk management. This framework provides a systematic and continuous process for identifying, assessing, mitigating, and monitoring risks. The study began with establishing the contextual framework, which included defining the internal and external conditions affecting the qanat system, identifying relevant stakeholders, and clarifying management objectives related to heritage conservation and water resource sustainability. Following this stage, a systematic risk identification process was conducted using the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analytical framework. This qualitative analysis drew upon historical management records, previous conservation initiatives, technical reports, and extensive field studies. The SWOT analysis enabled the identification of a wide spectrum of internal factors—including structural conditions of the underground tunnels, traditional maintenance practices, governance arrangements, and socio-cultural dynamics—as well as external pressures such as environmental hazards, economic constraints, and policy challenges. Through this rigorous process, a comprehensive inventory of potential risks was developed, encompassing both endogenous vulnerabilities (e.g., an aging demographic of skilled traditional workers, fragmented land ownership, insufficient financial resources) and exogenous drivers (e.g., climate change, groundwater depletion, urban expansion, and agricultural intensification).
To move beyond qualitative identification and establish a robust, quantitative basis for decision-making, the study employed the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate and prioritize the identified risks and corresponding management strategies. Empirical data was gathered through the judgments of a specialized panel consisting of 15 experts representing multiple disciplinary backgrounds, including cultural heritage conservation, risk management, hydrogeology, water engineering, and local governance. To synthesize and aggregate the individual judgments of the expert panel, the geometric mean method was utilized. The analysis was conducted using Expert Choice 11 software, yielding a Consistency Ratio (CR) of less than 0.1 across all pairwise comparison matrices, validating the reliability and coherence of the expert judgments.
The decision hierarchy was structured into four main criteria categories: managerial and institutional challenges (MC1), technical and physical challenges (MC2), socio-economic and cultural challenges (MC3), and environmental and external threats (MC4). The AHP evaluation revealed a distinct hierarchy among the identified risks, highlighting the overwhelming predominance of environmental and external pressures. Environmental and external threats emerged as the most critical category (weight: 0.410), empirically demonstrating that the most significant threats to the qanat’s sustainability originate from macro-level processes largely beyond the immediate control of site managers. Within this dominant category, climate change and prolonged drought conditions were identified as the single most critical risk factor across the entire system (weight: 0.519). This specific risk functions as a fundamental driver that intrinsically intensifies cascading vulnerabilities within the heritage system, leading to measurable reductions in water discharge levels.
The second most influential category consisted of managerial and institutional challenges (weight: 0.301), underscoring the importance of resilient governance structures. Within this category, insufficient and unstable funding for conservation activities emerged as the most significant sub-criterion (weight: 0.484), indicating that without reliable financial resources, systematic maintenance and protective infrastructure investments become structurally impossible. Technical and physical challenges ranked third (weight: 0.171), encompassing structural degradation and potential physical damage, with sediment accumulation identified as the most critical technical issue (weight: 0.402) due to its direct impact on hydrodynamic efficiency. Finally, socio-economic and cultural challenges ranked fourth (weight: 0.118). Despite its lower relative weight, this remains an essential qualitative dimension. The erosion of indigenous knowledge and traditional maintenance skills due to an aging workforce emerged as the most prominent risk here (weight: 0.431). The systemic analysis suggests that technical and socio-cultural challenges function primarily as intermediary risks catalyzed by broader environmental and managerial pressures; for example, drought-induced water reduction lowers economic motivation for maintenance, which subsequently accelerates sediment accumulation and the abandonment of traditional practices.
To validate these findings, a rigorous sensitivity analysis was performed to test the stability and robustness of the prioritization results. The sensitivity analysis confirmed that the structural ranking remained stable across various weighted scenarios. Specifically, the analysis demonstrated that even dynamic variations in the weight assigned to the environmental criterion maintained the overarching necessity of the proposed risk treatment strategies, thereby highlighting the dominant and pervasive influence of environmental conditions on the socio-hydrological system. The moderate changes simulated in the weights of other criteria produced relatively negligible impacts on the final strategic prioritization. This quantitative confirmation reinforces the definitive conclusion that external environmental processes—particularly climate-induced water scarcity—represent the absolute critical drivers shaping the future trajectory of the Qasabeh Qanat.
Based on the synthesis of these findings, the study developed and proposed a comprehensive, time-bound risk treatment plan meticulously aligned with the continuous improvement cycle of the ISO 31000 standard. The proposed strategic response is structured across three distinct temporal horizons: short-term (within two years), medium-term (within five years), and long-term (within ten years), formalized within an executive matrix that specifies responsible institutions, implementation priorities, and precise monitoring indicators. Short-term measures focus primarily on immediate preventive actions and the establishment of a robust, data-driven information base for future decision-making. These critical actions include updating baseline documentation of the qanat’s physical condition, developing high-resolution GIS-based hazard maps addressing acute risks such as flash floods, earthquakes, and water pollution, establishing a dedicated multi-source financial fund for urgent conservation activities, and formalizing emergency response protocols among relevant local and national institutions.
Medium-term strategies emphasize the strengthening of routine management practices and the deployment of protective infrastructure. These measures incorporate periodic updates of structural risk assessments, the engineering reinforcement of highly vulnerable underground segments, the installation of advanced continuous water monitoring telemetry, and the institutional revitalization of traditional maintenance practices, specifically the systematic dredging of sediment. Long-term strategies focus on achieving systemic resilience and adaptive management. These overarching goals include the preparation and legislative approval of a comprehensive master plan for structural stabilization, the strict integration of the qanat’s protective buffer zones into regional macro-level land-use and urban development plans, and the strategic promotion of sustainable cultural tourism. Furthermore, long-term educational initiatives aimed at formally preserving, documenting, and transmitting the indigenous engineering knowledge of the moqannis are strongly recommended. Ultimately, the present research demonstrates that the methodological integration of the ISO 31000 standard with the SWOT-AHP analytical framework provides a highly effective, scientifically rigorous model for managing risk and ensuring the sustainable conservation of historical water heritage. This integrated framework not only addresses the specific vulnerabilities of the Qasabeh Qanat of Gonabad but also serves as a robust, generalizable paradigm that can be successfully adapted and applied to other qanat systems and similar socio-hydrological heritage sites globally.