A total of 250 projects worth $5 billion are underway to help expand water supply infrastructures across the nation, the head of Planning Department at the Iran Water Resources Management Company (a subsidiary of Energy Ministry) said.
“The initiatives are aimed at providing safe potable water for at least 19 million people in several provinces,” Isa Bozorgzadeh was also quoted as saying by IRNA.
Giving a breakdown, he noted that of the total ventures, 100 projects, including pipe laying operations, dam construction and wastewater development, will be completed by March 2024.
The implementation of at least 50 pipe-laying projects will increase water supply capacity by 44,000 liters per second, enabling the state-owned National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company of Iran (Abfa) to transfer potable water to far-flung places.
Thirty dams with a capacity of 4.4 billion cubic meters will become operational in two years to accelerate water supply, he added.
Commenting on collecting sewage, the official noted that some 60 projects for building wastewater facilities are underway, of which 23 will be inaugurated next year and Abfa’s daily processing capacity of effluent will rise by 500,000 cubic meters.
According to Bozorgzadeh, 28 irrigation network projects covering 500,000 hectares are also being carried out by the Energy Ministry’s subsidiaries.
“Close to 13,000 small towns and rural districts across the country are deprived of potable water, wastewater networks and sewage collection facilities,” Abfa’s Managing Director Majid Aqazadeh said.
The massive figure accounts for 40% of the total villages located in remote regions, in which around 1.6 million people are living, he added.
Portable Tankers
There are 33,000 rural areas in the country, of which 20,000 are not covered by Abfa’s regular services, and a part of them are supplied with water via tankers, Aqazadeh said.
The official said about 18,000 small towns and villages, with a total population of 10 million, are located in water-stressed regions.
Residents of Isfahan, Bushehr, Khorasan Razavi, Sistan-Baluchestan, Fars, Kerman and Hormozgan provinces are facing difficulties accessing potable water because these provinces received less rainfall compared to other parts of the country. The provinces also lack adequate water reservoirs.
Water stress occurs when water demand exceeds the amount available during a certain period, or when poor quality restricts its use. Water stress causes the deterioration of freshwater resources in terms of quantity and quality.
Some experts and environmentalists reject the widely-held notion that chronic water shortages can be addressed only through higher precipitation, especially in countries that depend largely on rain-fed agriculture.
According to the official, close to 3,000 small towns have been connected to the national water grid over the last two years and operations are underway to provide 10,000 villages on the outskirts of urban and rural areas with piped water over the next three years at an estimated cost of $1 billion.
Iran’s total urban population has access to piped water as do 75% of rural residents, with the latter figure estimated to reach 90% by 2024.
Referring to the expansion of wastewater collection networks in recent years, Aqazadeh said almost half the 80 million population is connected to the sewerage system.
Official data show average global water use efficiency is about 75%, but the figure is a low as 35% due to unsustainable farming methods used in Iran.
Close to 90,000 kilometers of pipelines in the national water grid are old and dilapidated, and must be replaced, he added.
The national water network in cities stretches over 155,000 kilometers, of which around 25% (or 50,000 km) are decrepit.
Repairing one kilometer of the grid requires $90,000 and renovating old and seeping pipelines will cost $3.1 billion.
Financial Constraints
Due to financial constraints, Abfa is able to fix only 3,000 kilometers of the grid a year, small wonder the speed of pipeline corrosion has long outpaced renovation and repairs.
It is estimated that 6 billion cubic meters of clean water are entering the urban water networks every year.
Putting the length of the network in small towns at around 140,000 km, the state news agency said about 40% (or 50,000 km) of the pipelines need to be fixed. Close to $1.4 billion are needed to rehabilitate the rural grids where non-revenue water is 30%.
Iran has long been fighting drought and water deficits, and it is apparent that reducing non-revenue water will be effective in addressing the worsening crisis that has caused serious concern among academicians, conservationists and economic experts, especially those dealing with the farming sector.
Non-revenue water refers to water that has been produced and lost in different ways before it reaches the customer.
Abfa has said it fixed 1.2 million kilometers of faulty and 15,000 km of leaky pipelines between 2009 and 2018.
The utility also checked and repaired 221 kilometers of pipelines, in addition to 126,000 water meters nationwide since 2019.
It is estimated that 153 million cubic meters of water are wasted in the country every year in the form of non-revenue water.
Abfa's non-revenue water (in urban areas) is 25.5%, of which 11.8% are real losses [through leaks] and 13.7% are apparent losses [metering errors].
A World Bank study puts the global estimate of physical water loss at 32 billion cubic meters a year, half of it in the developing countries.
