The supply of desalinated water to Dargahan rural district on Qeshm Island has increased by 70%, Hormozgan Province, the head of the provincial Water and Wastewater Company said.
“The expansion of Dargahan desalination facility is complete and its processing capacity has risen from 3,000 cubic meters per day to 5,000 cm/d,” the Energy Ministry’s news portal also quoted Abdolhamid Hamzehpour as saying.
Desalination plants in the dry province, which annually produce 47 million cubic meters of potable water, meet 26% of the total demand, while wells and dams account for 74%, he added.
The official noted that the construction of three desalination plants in coastal districts, namely Salakh, Basaeed and Torgan (all on Qeshm Island), has started with the help of the private sector.
“Upon completion, the three plants will have the capacity to desalinate close to 12,000 cubic meters of seawater per day that would be enough to supply 42,000 people with potable water,” he said.
Similar to other provinces, underground resources are drying up rapidly in Hormozgan and tapping into unconventional water resources, namely treated seawater, has become a pressing need.
Referring to the region’s water plans, Hamzehpour said work on the second phase of Sirik desalination unit, off the Sea of Oman, was completed by the National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company of Iran (Abfa) and it will double the current desalination capacity at 2,000 cubic meters per day.
A water desalination unit was completed in the village of Ziarat in the central district of Bandar Lengeh. Using reverse osmosis technology, the plant went on stream in 2020 and supplies 3,000 cubic meters of water per day.
Rural Migration
As the water situation worsens and economic pressures pile up, rural folks are abandoning villages and migrating in bigger numbers to cities.
The expansion of Bandar Abbas desalination infrastructure can slow migration and contribute to sustainable rural development in the dry regions, Hamzehpour added, echoing the concerns of prominent economic experts and teachers of developmental studies.
Hormozgan has a population of 1.6 million but only one million have access to services of the provincial water company. The hot coastal region has 17 desalination units that produce 130,000 cubic meters of water per day.
The Energy Ministry says the fledgling domestic desalination industry can meet the need for potable water in the Persian Gulf littoral provinces.
Iran supplies 420,000 cubic meters of freshwater per day, or 153 million cubic meters per annum.
Persian Gulf Arab states’ demand for desalinated water has increased by 9-11% in recent years, according to Frost & Sullivan, a business consulting firm involved in market research and analysis.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain meet a large part of their need for drinking water from the strategic Persian Gulf waterway.
