Large volumes of treated wastewater from Birjand Wastewater Treatment Plant in South Khorasan Province are piped to plains in and around Khosf County as neither industries nor the agriculture sector purchases the valuable resource, managing director of the provincial water and wastewater company said.
“Close to 7 million cubic meters of wastewater are recycled in the facility per year, all of which are dumped into the plains while the region has long been suffering from a dire water shortage,” Hossein Emami was also quoted as saying by IRNA.
Wastewater reuse has been recognized as a pragmatic solution to deal with water scarcity around the globe. Nonetheless, industrialists and farmers in the arid region still insist on extracting water from depleting ground resources instead of tapping into unconventional resources that can easily meet their need, he rued.
A paradigm shift is necessary to set up an economic system in which wastewater is considered a precious resource rather than a liability, he said.
Emami said Birjand Wastewater Treatment Plant’s current capacity will reach 20 mcm per year in 2030 and if industrialists and farmers do not invest in transferring the reclaimed wastewater to their factories and farmlands, the dumping of recycled wastewater into plains will increase and the water crisis in the parched region will soon reach a point of no return.
“Treated wastewater can be used for the cultivation of plants used in the wood industry and other usages approved by the Department of Environment and the Agricultural Jihad Organization,” he said, stressing that replacing well water with treated wastewater is an effective approach for restoring and balancing groundwater resources.
According to the official, wastewater should be deemed a precious resource from which energy and soil nutrients can be extracted, as well as an additional source of water.
Deserted Villages
According to Hashem Valipour, a consultant in South Khorasan’s Agriculture Jihad Organization, 50% of the province’s villages are now deserted.
“Of the 3,500 villages, 1,600 are devoid of people,” he said.
Dwindling water resources and vanishing farmlands leave the rural folks with no option but to move to cities in increasing numbers to find work.
Recurrent droughts have led to the desiccation of 15% of aqueducts and reduction of water levels in 30% of South Khorasan aqueducts.
The gradual loss of water resources has prompted people to take drastic measures, such as digging illegal wells and withdrawing excess water that have further exacerbated the water problem.
Water experts like Esmaeil Shahbazi say promoting judicious water consumption is no longer effective in tackling the worsening water crisis, nor costly methods such as cloud seeding.
They insist that the government should play a bigger role in recycling wastewater.
Currently, 194 wastewater treatment plants are operating in Iran with a total sewage treatment capacity of 10.3 million cubic meters per day.
Recycling wastewater has come under the spotlight in recent years as many regions continue to grapple with perennial drought that has left large swathes of land barren and is forcing large numbers to abandon rural homes as farming comes to a near standstill and livelihoods are wiped out.
So far, 62,755 km of wastewater pipelines have been laid across the country and 300 cities are connected to the wastewater network.
Iran’s water recycling in agriculture is below 50%. Almost 90% of the scarce water resources are gulped down by the water-intensive and poorly-managed farming sector.
Wastewater, whose value had not been appreciated until recently, is increasingly recognized as a potential new source of clean water for potable and non-potable uses, resulting in social, environmental and economic benefits.
Islamic Tenets
Unlike some countries, recycled wastewater is not used for drinking purposes in Iran as it does not comply with Islamic tenets.
“It is used only in the industrial and agricultural sectors in Iran due to religious concerns,” Behnam Vakili, the head of the department in charge of wastewater networks at the National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company, said.
Stressing that Iran’s wastewater output is estimated to have reached 1.2 billion cubic meters per year, Vakili said 70% of water used by households can be reused in wastewater treatment plants.
He said while 48% of the country’s treated wastewater are used in the agricultural sector, about 45% of that enter surface waters, less than 0.5% is utilized in industrial units and 5% water urban green space.
If wastewater is not treated properly, it can have dire consequences on the environment and human health.
Other than contaminating drinking water, it can cause harm to marine and wildlife habitats, oxygen depletion and restrictions on recreational water use as well as on fish harvesting.
Emami said the second phase of Birjand Wastewater Treatment Plant has registered 90% progress and is expected to come on stream by April 2022.
“About $26 million have been spent on the project and upon completion, it will increase the wastewater treatment capacity of Birjand and improve the quality of treated sewage,” he said.
“We intend to expand the network in a way that it covers the whole city of Birjand. This project has also progressed by 90% so far,” he added.
The first phase of the wastewater treatment plant with a capacity of 21,500 cubic meters per day was completed in 2020.
The project is financed by ECO Trade and Development Bank, a regional multilateral lender established under the auspices of the Economic Cooperation Organization.
South Khorasan’s dry climate and desert terrain make farming difficult but still 35% of the population rely on agriculture. However, drought has taken a heavy toll on the shrinking farming community, leaving in its trail a barren landscape and abandoned rural areas.
