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This study examines the implication of a market-based system to allocate water regionally in one of the most intensively irrigated areas of Greece. The proposed approach combines elements from administrative allocation and tradable water rights in order to assess several water supply scenarios under growing water scarcity conditions. In this framework, irrigation water demand functions were derived by means of an optimization model that maximizes the expected annual net benefits from water use in agriculture. Then, an inter-district water market model is developed to compute the most effective water allocation at the basin-level. An institutional reform is suggested, that is linked with the creation of effective water users’ associations. The aim of this reform is to achieve a functioning and low-cost trading system at the basin level. The results show that significant volumes of water would be traded under various deficit scenarios, mainly due to the spatial heterogeneity in water use and availability.

In the present study, batch adsorption studies were performed for the removal of malachite green and acid blue 161 dyes from aqueous solutions by varying parameters such as contact time, waste marble dust amount, initial dye concentration and temperature. The equilibrium adsorption data were analyzed by Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin adsorption isotherm models. The Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models agree well with experimental data. The pseudo-second order, intraparticle intraparticle diffusion and Elovich kinetic models were applied to the experimental data in order to describe the removal mechanism of dye ions by waste marble dust. The pseudo-second order kinetic was the best fit kinetic model for the experimental data. Thermodynamics parameters such as ΔG, ΔH and ΔS were also calculated for the adsorption processes. The experimental data were used to construct an artificial neural network (ANN) model to predict removal of malachite green and acid blue 161 dyes by waste marble dust. A three-layer ANN, an input layer with four neurons, a hidden layer with 12 neurons, and an output layer with one neuron is constructed. Different training algorithms were tested on the model to obtain the proper weights and bias values for ANN model. The results show that waste marble dust is an efficient sorbent for malachite green dye and ANN network, which is easy to implement and is able to model the batch experimental system.

A new concept of water management implies the utilisation of karstic water, primarily, to resolve the public water supply issue. In the future, a number of benefits such as: resolving of centralized water supply issues, reduction of surface water pollution, creating opportunities for the utilisation of surface water for other purposes, creating new tourist zones, reduction of environmental pollution, improvement of the general welfare of the population, etc., will be achieved by this concept. From the aforesaid, it can be concluded that a number of interconnected and integrated benefits will be gained by full implementation of the new concept of karst water utilisation. The application of the concept designed in this way, ultimately implies the establishment of an integrated management of all karst water in the area of Zlatibor. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary, primarily, to solve the problem of adequate public water supply by karstic groundwater, which implies the establishment of integrated karstic water management in this area, and that is the focus of this paper.