Although the number of dams in Iran has shot up by a massive 30 times over the last 40 years, the poor strategy of increasing their numbers has not eased water paucity, a water resources management expert said.
“There were barely 20 dams in Iran before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which figure currently exceeds 580. At least 500 more dams are either under construction or will be constructed in the coming years, but water scarcity remains an unsolved issue in Iran,” Dariush Mokhtari also told ILNA.
“Oddly, the gigantic reservoirs, which were supposed to solve the chronic water shortage in the country, have turned out to be utterly useless, resulting in complicated issues for the people who live in downstream regions,” he said.
“Despite the sharp rise in the number of dams over the period, precipitation in Iran has suffered a significant decline in the same time span, meaning the amount of water stored in 580 dams now is almost equal to the amount of water stored in 20 dams in 1980.”
Annual rainfall in Iran has currently decreased to 180 millimeters that equals 400 billion cubic meters of water, two-thirds of which evaporate and whatever is kept in dams cannot penetrate into ground resources.
Officials take turns in proudly announcing that plans are underway to complete 500 dams across the country, of which 43 "must" be ready by 2024. However, of the 580 dams in Iran, close to 100 are without water.
Mokhtari stressed that if only as little as 10% of dam building funds were allocated to reviving and stabilizing aquifers, the country would have more sustainable water resources, including rivers and aqueducts.
According to the official, many dams were built not for solving water-related issues, but with political intentions and for rent-seeking, that’s why some dams have been constructed in wrong places.
Wrong Decision
Although dams like Karkheh on the Karkheh River in northwest Khuzestan have massive reservoirs, they are mostly empty and this shows that building such a huge structure on the strategic waterway was a wrong decision, Mehdi Qomshi, the head of the Water Affairs Faculty at Shahid Chamran University in Ahvaz, Khuzestan Province, said.
Elaborating on Karkheh Dam, he noted that despite the enormous reservoir with a storage capacity of 7 billion cubic meters, water stored in it in the past 15 years never surpassed 2.5 bcm.
The dam’s location was not decided as per critical technical regulations and accurate planning. The outcome is that most of the time it is empty.
Referring to other problems with dam building, he said unlike other countries where dams are not necessarily constructed for farming (some are built to only generate power), in Iran all mega structures are used either by the agro or industrial sectors. One major problem is that such dams tend to create a false sense of abundance of water reserves with disastrous consequences.
“Building dams on rivers with low water flow [especially in the central plateau] has worsened water scarcity in dry provinces, as water-intensive industries [and power plants] expand in such regions under the false presumption that dams would be full all the time,” he said.
Now that dams are gradually drying up, industries heavily dependent on water are facing acute problems.
Qomshi said reservoirs can create a false sense of abundance, especially in places where water availability and populations don’t match.
Dams and other water infrastructure (such as desalination plants) can make communities less resilient because they mask water paucity. This is what has happened in the dry provinces of Iran, namely in Isfahan, where huge steel plants were constructed (and are being expanded).
Referring to dams in West Azarbaijan Province, the university lecturer concurred that as more water storage structures were built, farming boomed.
Growing Needs
So far so good. But now dams in the region are half empty and cannot meet farmers’ growing needs, so they resort to drilling wells and use underground resources that are fast depleting.
For instance, the world-famous Urmia Lake, which was fed with underground resources, is long in deficit and in danger of desiccation.
“Despite the drawbacks, building dams in flood-prone regions like Lorestan Province to control the deluge makes economic sense,” Behrouz Moradi, managing director of Iran Water and Power Resources Development Company, said, noting that dams may remain empty for a long time, but during floods the same structures save precious lives and property.
According to the official, due to drastic changes in the geographical patterns of precipitation, dams under construction are being completed largely with the aim of controlling floodwaters.
“Dam construction will continue and more mega structures are on the agenda,” he said.
Moradi noted that those who claim dams are a liability may have a point (as half are empty), but were it not for dams in the southern and northern regions, namely Khuzestan and Golestan provinces, the destruction unleashed by floods last April on life, property, roads, crops, livestock and health owing to waterborne diseases would have doubled.
