Plans to supply desalinated water from the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea to the arid and drought-hit plains of central Iran will only offer a temporary solution and cannot help fight drought in the long run, director of the Forecasting and Early Warning Office at the Iran Meteorological Organization said.
“Water diversion schemes are a recipe for disaster in the long run, not only due to the exorbitant expenses involved but also because of their catastrophic impact on the ecosystem,” IRNA also quoted Ahad Vazifeh as saying.
In inter-basin water transfer projects, costs outweigh benefits. Long-term environmental damage, such as depletion of groundwater resources and land subsidence, is irreversible, he added.
Inter-basin transfer, or trans-basin diversion refers to manmade conveyance schemes that move water from one river basin to another where water is in deficit, usually for development purposes.
The official said massive costs notwithstanding, such plans are time-consuming and when they are completed, the availability of water would probably result in expansion of water-intensive industries like steel factories.
“The transfer of water from the Persian Gulf to Kerman and Yazd will cost $1.5 per cubic meters and the supply of such expensive water to farmers will increase the prices of agro products and contribute to inflation,” he said.
Vazifeh believes more sustainable means can help meet a region’s water needs without harming water resources in the long run.
“Spreading public awareness, promoting prudent consumption patterns, treating and recycling wastewater, collecting and reusing groundwater, updating traditional irrigation and farming practices should be given higher priority,” he added.
Inter-basin transfer to far-flung regions will compromise the above-mentioned approaches tried and tested globally to fight water shortage.
Water Paucity
According to Mohammad Darvish, a well-known environmentalist and director of the Public Participation Office at the Department of Environment, Iran is among very few countries trying to tackle water paucity by building a pipeline stretching over a long distance and this is while other alternatives have been overlooked.
“We haven’t systematically explored other options, including recycling wastewater. In some countries, they treat water up to 18 times for irrigation,” Darvish said, adding that the current method of irrigation produces up to 35 billion cubic meters of wastewater, which offer an opportunity for recycling.
To put things into perspective, Darvish, who is an expert on desertification, said the agriculture sector gobbles up more than 90% of Iran’s scarce water resources, while the average Iranian uses 250 liters of water per day.
“So, instead of spending money on setting up plants to recycle and conserve water, we’re willing to inject billions of dollars into water transfer projects that will give rise to numerous problems,” he said.
The next solution proposed by Darvish is overhauling farming policies, especially those pertaining to the volume of food produced.
“Around 30% of our crops, which use 27 billion cubic meters of water, are wasted because they never reach their intended consumers – that’s six times the global average,” he said.
However, the problem cannot be blamed on farmers alone.
“It’s got a lot to do with how the crops are packaged and transported; a lot of food is spoilt during this process. We need to revamp the entire system. It’ll be money well spent,” he said.
Ecotourism
Darvish believes large sums of money used to transfer water to dry regions, such as Semnan, Kerman and Yazd, to support water-intensive industries would be better spent on developing ecotourism and other green projects in drought-stricken provinces.
“If properly planned and executed, ecotourism will have a minimal impact on water resources and help develop local economies,” he said.
Taking stock of Iran’s diverse natural landscapes that can appeal to different tastes, the official said developing ecotourism will also help Iran take a step toward “achieving its sustainable development goals and reducing environmental harm”.
“In addition to hurting the ecosystem, transferring water would nurture false hope among farmers and undermine their effort to rethink their unacceptable and wasteful irrigation practices,” Qasem Taqizadeh Khamesi, a deputy for water and wastewater affairs at the Energy Ministry, said.
According to Khamesi, the agriculture sector in arid provinces consumes 11 billion cubic meters of the precious water resources every year.
"If they reduce consumption by 3% a year, there would be no need to spend $4 billion to transfer seawater to those regions," he added.
According to the International Water Management Institute, a non-profit, scientific research organization focused on sustainable use of water and land resources in developing countries, water (renewable) resources were around 140 bcm in 1999 and fell rapidly ever since to 135 bcm, 130 bcm, 105 bcm and 105 bcm in 2007, 2013, 2017 and 2020 respectively.
