To improve water supply to rural areas, construction work has begun to build a desalination facility in Torgan District on Qeshm Island, Hormozgan Province, the head of the provincial Water and Wastewater Company said.
“With a capacity of 5,000 cubic meters per day, the facility will be completed in nine months by the private sector group Tana Energy,” the Energy Ministry’s news portal Pavenalso quoted Abdolhamid Hamzehpour as saying.
The new plant, estimated to cost $10 million, is expected to supply 23,000 people in the rural district with tap water, he added.
The official noted that the construction of the new plant as well as two other facilities (Salakh and Basaeed on Qeshm Island), will increase desalination capacity in the region by 12,000 cubic meters of seawater per day that would be enough to supply 42,000 people with potable water.
Similar to other provinces, underground resources are drying up rapidly in Hormozgan and tapping into unconventional water resources, namely treated seawater, has become a pressing need.
Referring to the region’s water plans, Hamzehpour said work on the second phase of Sirik desalination unit, off the Sea of Oman, was completed by the National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company of Iran (Abfa) and it will double the current desalination capacity to 2,000 cubic meters per day.
A water desalination unit was completed in the village of Ziarat in the central district of Bandar Lengeh. Using reverse osmosis technology, the plant went on stream in 2020 and supplies 3,000 cubic meters of water per day.
Economic Pressures
As the water situation worsens and economic pressures pile up, rural folks are abandoning villages and migrating in bigger numbers to cities.
Hamzehpour said the expansion of desalination infrastructure in the southern province can slow migration and contribute to sustainable rural development in the dry regions, echoing the concerns of prominent economic experts and teachers of developmental studies.
Hormozgan has a population of 1.6 million but only 1 million have access to services of the provincial water company. The hot coastal region has 17 desalination units that produce 130,000 cubic meters of water per day.
Iran supplies 420,000 cubic meters of freshwater per day, or 153 million cubic meters per annum.
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.
According to Shahin Pakrouh, deputy chief engineer at Abfa, dependence on rainwater and river runoff in drought-stricken regions can no longer meet mounting demand.
That is why unconventional water resources, such as reclaimed and desalinated water, have emerged as effective solutions for the sustainable and long-term management of drinking water in parched regions like Hormozgan and Bushehr.
Unconventional water resources are generated as a byproduct of specialized processes such as desalination; or that need suitable pre-use treatment before use for irrigation.
The role and significance of water reuse as a solution to Iran’s worsening water problems has increased in recent years. Many regions, namely Isfahan, Hormozgan and Semnan, have already started to reuse water either with the help of wastewater facilities or large-scale desalination.
Founded in 2010, Tana Energy Group is active in water and power, oil and gas and rail transportation.
