A total of 238 million cubic meters of water are stored in the dams of Tehran Province, which is down 77 mcm compared to this time last year when the figure was 345 mcm, managing director of Tehran Water and Wastewater Company (Abfa) said.
“This is while there should be 590 mcm of water in the dams under normal conditions,” Mohammed Reza Bakhtiari was also quoted as saying by the Energy Ministry’s news portal.
Dams supplying water to Tehran include Taleqan, Latyan, Mamlou, Karaj and Lar. The five dams together can hold 2 billion cubic meters of water, but the water stored in them is now less than 12% of their total capacity.
Almost 30% of potable water demand in the province can be met through dams and the rest must be extracted from underground resources, which are already in a bad state.
“Although 10 days have passed since the beginning of the winter, the amount of rainfall in Tehran has not been appropriate unlike other parts of the country, and this is almost unprecedented in the last 50 years,” he added.
Regarding water consumption in the province, he said, “About 1.7 billion cubic meters of water are consumed annually in the province, of which about 1.2 billion cubic meters are consumed in Tehran County and the rest in other cities of the province.”
The official noted that the national average of water consumption in the drinking sector is about 7-8% and about 90% of the country's water are used in the agriculture sector.
“However, this is not true about Tehran Province where about 43% of the water are used for drinking purposes,” Bakhtiari said.
Water consumption in Tehran Province since the beginning of fall has not changed from the hot summer days and more than 3 billion liters of water have been consumed per day.
The unsustainable consumption pattern seriously threatens water supply in the sprawling capital amid low rainfall and persistent drought.
Cutting Water Supply
According to Bakhtiari, Abfa has been cutting water supply to high-consuming subscribers as of Oct. 12.
Maximum consumption level for households in the province is 28,000 liters per month and those who exceed the limit will face immediate supply cuts.
A survey of water consumption trend in the first half of the current Iranian year in Tehran Province (March 21-Sept. 22) shows that only 37% of households had normal consumption and other consumers were in the "high consumption" and "bad consumption" categories.
According to these statistics, 59% of the subscribers are heavy consumers, using 14 to 28 cubic meters per month, which is twice the defined consumption pattern, and 4% of the subscribers are considered high consumers as their consumption has exceeded 28 cubic meters per month. According to reports, this category of subscribers alone consumes 10% of the total domestic drinking water in Tehran.
In order to protect water resources, which have been decreasing due to the continued drought in recent years, the water supply of high consumers is cut off during certain hours of the day. This measure will continue until they reduce their consumption and follow the pattern.
Reports say close to 500,000 heavy consumers have been notified by Tehran Regional Water Company to reduce their consumption level by at least 25%, otherwise their water supply will be cut off.
Tehran Province accounts for 25% of Iran’s total water consumption, which is around 100 billion cubic meters.
This is while Tehran Province’s population comprises 17.5% of the country’s total population.
