Executive operations of the second phase of the project to transfer Persian Gulf water to Yazd Province in central Iran will start soon.
Yazd has faced a great deal of tensions regarding water supply due to the severe decline in rainfall in the past few years. The average precipitation in Yazd has fallen below 50 mm per year. The mega project is expected to address a significant part of Yazd’s water issues and provide water for drinking, industrial and agricultural purposes, the Energy Ministry’s news portal reported.
Building three desalination units in Bandar Abbas, each with a capacity of 200,000 cubic meters per day, laying 720 kilometers of transmission lines and setting up several pumping stations are part of the water transfer project that will take four years to complete. Upon launch, about 200 million cubic meters of desalinated water will be transferred to Yazd Province annually.
The Persian Gulf water transfer plan will also cover provinces, such as Hormozgan, Kerman, Yazd, South Khorasan and Isfahan.
The first phase of the plan was launched in 2020 and supplied water to Golgohar Mining and Industrial Complex in Sirjan, Kerman. It included a desalination unit (in Bandar Abbas), 10 pumping stations, 40 water storage tanks, 14 power substations and a 150-kilovolt power transmission line from Hormozgan to Kerman and Yazd.
The mega project will take four years to complete and upon launch, about 200 million cubic meters of desalinated water will be transferred to Yazd Province annually
The following year, an 850-km pipeline was also launched to annually transfer 180 million cubic meters of desalinated water from the Bandar Abbas Desalination Plant in southern Hormozgan Province to Sarcheshmeh Copper Mine in Rafsanjan County, Kerman Province, and the Chadormalu Mining and Industrial Company in Ardakan County, Yazd Province.
Of the total volume of planned water transfer, Golgohar Complex, Sarcheshmeh Copper Mine and Chadormalu Company annually receive 45 mcm, 40 mcm and 30 mcm, respectively. The rest is used for drinking purposes in the dry region.
With the completion of the new phase, other industries in Yazd Province will also be provided with water from the Persian Gulf and reduce their dependence on groundwater, the level of which has declined in recent years.
On average, 1 billion cubic meters of water are extracted from groundwater sources in Yazd every year, resulting in severe water deficits in most plains.
Groundwater overdraft can lead to the destruction of vegetation, increase the possibility of dust storms, create sinkholes in the plains, increase salt content in groundwater and worsen land subsidence.
Yazd is in central Iran where two deserts Dasht-e-Kavir and Dasht-e-Lut meet. It has dry and arid climate and suffers from chronic drought.
The massive project has been financed by private investment and loans from Iran’s sovereign wealth fund.
Water transfer from the Persian Gulf is expected to alleviate the water crisis in Iran’s central regions (Yazd and Kerman) that have limited access to underground water resources and suffer from low precipitation.
The two province’s drinking water comes from wells, springs, aqueducts and dams. The desert provinces, as is the case in most other regions of Iran, have piled unsurmountable pressure on the dwindling groundwater resources.
The plains around Kerman and Yazd no longer have the capacity for deeper wells to reach groundwater and water transfer is apparently the last option.
Climate change and global warming have resulted in rising temperatures across continents and summers in Iran and other places have become much hotter compared to a quarter century ago.
