The first phase of a project is underway to transfer desalinated water from Parsian Special Economic Energy Zone in southern Hormozgan Province in the Persian Gulf to Lamard Special Economic Zone in Fars Province.
According to ILNA and based on information from the Energy Ministry, the 100-km pipeline with five pumping stations will annually transfer 15 million cubic meters of desalinated water from Parsian port to Lamard.
Contractors, including Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) and Farassan Industrial Group are laying pipes and building the desalination facility using reverse osmosis process technology.
“The project is estimated to cost $170 million and is expected to be completed by 2023,’ Masoud Bahmanpour, the project operator, said. Water will be sold to industries and farmers in the Lamard SEC, he added.
According to the official, excavation operations have been carried out and high-pressure pipelines are being laid.
Bahmanpour noted that the development of Lamard energy zones is imperative to expanding the petrochemical industry and “this cannot happen unless enough water is available.”
Founded in 1987, Farassan is a private company involved in designing, engineering, production, and construction services for the water, oil, petrochemical and other industries.
Fars Province’s drinking water comes from 350 wells, springs, aqueducts and two dams. The dry province, as is the case in most other regions in Iran, has been grappling with drought for years and piling pressure on the people, utilities and urban managers.
Officials have warned that the region’s groundwater balance is negative as the rate of water withdrawal is over and above recharge.
Prolonged drought, rising temperatures, growing demand plus global warming have led to a rapid decline in the recharge of groundwater resources in Iran.
Although experts consider water transfer schemes to be environmentally hazardous and destructive, using water from the Persian Gulf is seen as the last resort. Many Arab littoral states have long been drawing water from the strategic waterway at high costs.
Water experts including the director of Iran Water Industry Federation, Alireza Shariat, insist that discussing water management with other countries and drawing on their experience should be a priority.
Valuable Resource
Shariat stressed that although water scarcity is one of the biggest environmental challenges facing Iran, inefficient management of the valuable resource is largely to blame for a crisis that has emerged over the years.
"There is no doubt that current critical conditions of Iran's rapidly vanishing wetlands and groundwater resources are mainly due to the inept water management, rather than the drought itself," he added.
Iranians were once pioneers of water management and innovated techniques such as aqueducts, but the creative strategies have long been neglected.
According to the official, the most significant missing strategy is "territory planning" that determines which development project can be implemented in a certain region based on climatic specifications. For instance, water-intensive crops must not be cultivated in regions suffering from water shortage.
Shariat complained that unfortunately, this issue is very poorly considered by officials.
Referring to the worsening conditions in Khuzestan Province, he noted that land under rice cultivation in Khuzestan has increased from 60,000 hectares in 2020 to 90,000 hectares at present.
Water Ownership
Although water ownership has become one of the most critical problems in the world, especially in the Middle East, policy and decision makers in Iran are still preoccupied with raising crude oil output and prices, and they seem to be oblivious of the fact that the ownership of water supplies will bring neighboring countries into conflict sooner or later, he said.
"With renewable energy expanding at a faster pace than expected in the world, oil and its derivatives will lose their importance in a foreseeable future and water, not petroleum, is expected to emerge as the world's most vital product."
As water becomes increasingly precious worldwide, it is projected that more conflicts will arise as several nations compete for limited water resources. Indeed, water-related tensions have mounted among Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Afghanistan, which share borders.
The earth is indeed the blue planet due to an abundance of oceans, but only 1% of its water is fresh and accessible. Agriculture and industry are thirsty for that limited supply and the environment is in steep decline because of human mismanagement.
All these competing forces have convinced experts, including Shariat, to agree that “water will replace petroleum as the 21st century's core commodity”, with nations rich in water resources enjoying enormous socioeconomic advantage over those lacking the precious resource.
