This study examines an approach for planning groundwater development in coastal aquifers. The seawater intrusion is controlled through a series of barrier extraction wells. The multi-objective management problem is cast as a nonlinear, nonconvex combinatorial model and is solved using a coupled simulation-optimization approach. A density-dependent groundwater flow and transport model, SEAWAT is used for simulating the dynamics of seawater intrusion. The Simulated Annealing algorithm is used for solving the optimization problem. The idea of replacing the SEAWAT model with a trained artificial neural network (ANN) to manage the computational burden within practical time frames on a desktop computer is explored. The utility of the study is demonstrated through a trade-off curve between prioritizing groundwater development and controlling seawater intrusion at desired levels.