The rise in ground water salinity including from deep wells in Yazd has harmed the quality of drinking water in the arid region, managing director of the provincial water company said.
“Underground resources are depleting faster than anticipated and supplying rural areas even low quality water may not be possible in the long run,” Mohammad Mehdi Javadianzadeh was quoted as saying by the Energy Ministry news website.
Rapid urbanization, excessive pumping of groundwater, rerouting rivers and streams, digging illegal wells and outdated farming methods are among the main causes of water crisis and increased salinity, Javadianzadeh said.
Referring to other resources, he noted that water transferred from Kouhrang Dam in Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari to Yazd Province is neither sufficient nor of high quality and is adding to the migration problem as rural folks in increasing numbers move out in search of work.
The water manager said 600 small towns are facing acute drinking water scarcity as underground water dries up. Average rainfall in Yazd has declined 30% since the beginning of the current water year (Sept. 23) compared to the same period last year.
On average one billion cubic meters of water is extracted from groundwater sources in the desert region every year as result of which water deficits have become a water crisis with no sustainable solution in sight.
An estimated 4,000 legal water wells have been dug in the province in the last few years exacerbating the crisis in most plains as shrinking water supplies take a toll on agriculture and horticulture.
“At present 185 rural districts depend fully on tanker water and another 115 villages partially rely on it.”
Permanent Drought
Yazd is in the center of Iran where two deserts of Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e-Lut meet. Due to the dry and arid climate conditions plus long and near permanent droughts, Yazd needs more pro-active management and optimal use of the depleting water resource.
The rural population of the province was 38% in 1976 and hit a record low of 17% in 2015. The province has been dealing with drought for decades and has faced recurrent dry spells since 1960. Effective and quick solutions are needed to slow the rural exodus to bigger cities that are overstretched and struggling with urban problems of their own.
Yazd has been facing consecutive drought since 1999 with only a two-year respite in between. The long and dry spells have wreaked havoc on villages being abandoned as never before.
Rural population in Iran has been declining. The latest census found out that hardly 28% of the population lives in the countryside.
The unprecedented movement of people from rural to urban areas is forecast to continue globally and intensify in the next few decades, with cities mushrooming to sizes incomprehensible a century ago.
The United Nations had projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2020. By 2050 it is predicted that 64.1% and 85.9% of the developing and developed world will be urbanized.
