Some dams in Iran have not been constructed in the right place, head of the Water Affairs Faculty at Shahid Chamran University in Ahvaz, Khuzestan Province said.
“Although dams like Karkheh on the Karkheh River in northwest Khuzestan have massive reservoirs, they are mostly empty and this shows that building such a huge structure on the strategic waterway was a wrong decision,” Mahdi Qomshi was quoted as saying by ILNA.
Elaborating on Karkheh Dam, he noted that despite the enormous reservoir with storage capacity of 7 billion cubic meters, water stored in it in the past 15 years never surpassed 2.5 bcm.
The dam’s location was not decided as per critical technical regulations and accurate planning. The outcome is that most of the time it is empty.
Referring to other problems with dam building, he said unlike other countries where dams are not necessarily constructed for farming (some are built to only generate power), in Iran all mega structures are used either by the agro or industrial sectors. One major problems is that such dams tend to create a false sense of abundance of water reserves with disastrous consequences.
“Building dams on rivers with low water flow (especially in the central plateau) has worsened water scarcity in dry provinces as water-intensive industries (and power plants) expand in such regions under the false presumption that dams would be full all the time.”
Now that dams are gradually drying up, industries heavily dependent on water are facing acute problems.
Qomshi said reservoirs can create a false sense of abundance especially in places where water availability and populations don’t match.
Dams and other water infrastructure (such as desalination plants) can make communities less resilient because they mask water paucity. This is what has happened in the dry provinces in Iran, namely in Isfahan, where huge steel plants were constructed (and are being expanded).
Referring to dams in West Azarbaijan Province, the university lecturer concurred that as more water storage structures were built, farming boomed.
So far so good. But now dams (in the region) are half empty and cannot meet farmers’ growing needs, so they resort to drilling wells and use underground resources that are fast depleting. Moreover, the world famous Lake Urmia, which was fed with underground resources, is long in deficit and in danger of desiccation.
Flood-Prone Areas
“Despite the drawbacks, building dams in flood-prone regions like Lorestan Province to control deluge makes economic sense,” Behrouz Moradi, managing director of Iran Water and Power Resources Development Company said, noting that dams may remain empty for a long time, but during floods the same structures save precious lives and property.
According to the official, due to drastic changes in the geographic patterns of precipitation, dams under construction are being completed largely with the aim of controlling floodwaters.
“Dam construction will continue and more mega structures are on the agenda.”
Those who claim dams are a liability may have a point (half are empty), but were it not for dams in the southern and northern regions, namely Khuzestan and Golestan provinces, the destruction unleashed by floods last April on life, property, roads, crops, livestock, and health owing to waterborne diseases would have doubled, he noted.
Heavy rains in March-April 2019 caused torrential floods in 24 provinces, especially in oil-rich Khuzestan off the Persian Gulf.
“It is unfortunate that opponents of dam building normally underestimate their role in flood control.”
Flood control dams impound floodwaters and either release them under control to a river below the dam or store or divert the water for other uses. For centuries, people have built dams to help control devastating floods.
