Tapping into seawater and developing desalination plants to quench the thirst in parched areas, especially in southern regions which have long been suffering from acute water paucity, remain a top priority, the energy minister said.
“Seventy plus desalination plants that process 309,000 cubic meters of saline water per day were launched in the past 10 years and cost $250 million,” the Energy Ministry’s news service quoted Reza Ardakanian as saying.
The projects were mostly funded by the National Development Fund of Iran, the country's sovereign wealth fund.
Of the 71 installations, 54 are in the southern coastal region, namely Hormozgan, Bushehr and Sistan-Baluchestan provinces. The rest were built in the northern region, including Gilan, Mazandaran and Golestan, in collaboration with the National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company of Iran (Abfa).
Abfa is completing 25 other desalination units that are in different stages of construction in southern areas. When completed, 259,000 cubic meters of desalinated water will be added to Abfa’s capacity per day, which will reach 568,000 cm/d.
“The northern and southern provinces have at least 2,700 kilometers of marine borders, which gives them potential for the development of desalination plans,” the minister said, and noted that investment in desalination infrastructure will create jobs and help curtail water withdrawal from depleting underground resources.
“As the water crisis worsens in the dry regions where underground resources are diminishing rapidly, using unconventional resources, namely saline and treated wastewater, has become inevitable,” Qasem Taqizadeh Khamesi, deputy energy minister for water and wastewater affairs, said.
The arid Bushehr and Sistan-Baluchestan provinces are among the most water-stressed regions of Iran. Conditions have become so bad that urban authorities send water tankers to some rural areas.
Sustainable Supplies
To help ensure sustainable supplies, the deputy minister said more desalination plants are needed in the Persian Gulf coastal areas. It takes about 8 liters of seawater to produce between 2.7 and 4 liters of freshwater, depending on the equipment used.
Experts believe Iran's fledgling desalination industry should meet the need for potable water in the Persian Gulf littoral provinces. As a result, tapping into the sea to produce clean water is high on the Energy Ministry’s agenda, as it is a much more viable to maintain a sustainable supply of water rather than depleting the fast dwindling underground resources, most of which are on the verge of drying up.
According to officials, 18 provinces covering nearly 60% of the population are experiencing water stress and addressing the worsening water crisis has become a major preoccupation of experts and policymakers.
Environmentalists and economic experts have routinely warned successive governments in Tehran over the past several decades that the present water consumption patterns are not sustainable, namely in the key agricultural sector that consumes almost 90% of the water in the drought-hit country.
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.
