Dams could collectively hold 13 billion cubic meters of water in the late 1970s, but capacity has now reached 53 bcm, the deputy energy minister for water and wastewater affairs said in Tehran.
There are 193 large dams -- 10 times the number four decades ago, ILNA reported Qassem Taqizadeh Khamesi as saying. The substantial increase is while the population has increased 2.3 times during this period, he said.
Regarding construction of more dams, Khamesi said: “Feasibility studies are underway for 120 dams to add 20 bcm to total reservoir capacity.”
Depending on environmental studies, all 120 dams may not enter the construction phase, he stressed. At present, about 90% of the water in dams is used for agricultural, 7% for drinking and the rest for industries.
On the need for dams, he said, “Iran is located in an arid and semi-arid region. With droughts, rare wet years and devastating floods, we have no choice but to build dams.”
Elaborating the point, he added, “I believe there is need for more dams because almost half of our population lives in water-deficit regions and we have to meet demand, mainly in the Central Plateau, from far-away dams.”
Some think that dams are only to store water, while “one major purpose of constructing dams is to control floods.” Half the dams are in the southern regions like Khuzestan and flood-prone areas have long suffered from deluge causing heavy human and material damage.
Stopgap
Despite what Khamesi and other officials say about the role and significance of dams, experts and environmentalists have a very different opinion. They believe if rainwater management systems were advanced and enough funds were available for developing runoff collecting systems instead of constructing dams, people would not have to endure the pain and misery that has become a near permanent feature in recent years.
Rejecting claims that without dams the destructive impact of floods is much worse, Anoush Esfandiari, a researcher at the Water Policy Research Institute, a subsidiary of Kerman Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, says, "Dams are a stopgap against floods and keep on postponing disaster. Officials seem oblivious to the fact that dams, even if built in the right locations, have their own limitations. These structures can overflow if the heavy downpours continue for more than a week.”
In his views, shared by other conservationists, “Fighting floodwaters is not new to Iran. Our ancestors knew better. Building huge barriers was the last resort, especially in the flat terrains where it was impossible to build a dam.
Over centuries there was a pooling of minds “with efficient methods and control mechanisms that, among other things, did not allow construction in specific areas away from water bodies," he said.
According to Esfandiari, in the past mass housing projects were banned near the downstream side of dams to prevent loss to life and property when disaster struck.
