To help address water shortages in Hormozgan Province, a water desalination unit is being completed in the village of Ziarat in the central district of Bandar Lengeh, managing director of the provincial Water and Wastewater Company said.
"Using reverse osmosis technology, the plant is projected to become operational in August and will purify 3,000 cubic meters of water a day," Amin Qasmi was quoted as saying by the Energy Ministry news portal.
As the water crisis worsens in the dry region where “underground resources are also drying up rapidly, tapping into unconventional water resources namely saline water has become inevitable,” he said.
Reverse osmosis is a water purification technology that uses a semipermeable membrane to remove ions, molecules and larger particles from drinking water.
Referring to similar plans in the region, he noted that the second phase of Sirik desalination unit, off the Sea of Oman in the southern province, is being undertaken by the National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company of Iran (Abfa).
Once developed, the current desalination capacity (2,000 cubic meters per day) will double.
The first phase of the facility (Sirik Plant) went on stream in 2018 and provides 8,000 people with potable water. An undertaking of the private sector, it includes 6km of pipeline, 2 tanks each with 1,500 cubic meters capacity and a pumping station producing 90 liters of water per second.
Qasmi went on to say that the third development phase of Bandar Abbas water desalination unit will come online by the end of July. The unit purifies 20,000 cubic meters of water a day and in less than three weeks the capacity will rise by 50% or 10,000 cubic meters per day.
Lack of safe water for the urban and rural areas is a problem and has to be addressed on a priority basis, he concurred.
Curbing Migration
Several villages in the area have been abandoned and so expanding Bandar Abbas desalination infrastructure can help curb migration and contribute to sustainable rural development in the dry regions, he added.
There are 17 desalination units in the province producing 62,000 cubic meters of water a day.
Hormozgan has a population of 1.6 million and 1.1 million are covered by services of the provincial water company.
Desalination plants now provide significant volumes of water in the northern and southern coastal regions.
Currently, wells and dams provide 71% of the water used in the province. Seventeen desalination units are in different stages of construction and it is projected that by 2022, use of underground water resources will be cut to 34% and share of purified water will rise to 66%.
Experts say the fledgling domestic desalination industry can and should meet the needs for potable water in the Persian Gulf littoral provinces. Iran (with the help of desalination units) produces 420,000 cubic meters of freshwater per day, or 148 million cubic meters per annum.
Nonetheless, prominent conservationists, climatologists and water experts say the transfer of sea water to the dry regions is “a band-aid solution” with the potential to do more harm than help.
