Iran is fast-tracking the construction of 118 dams across the country, with four dams already operational and 11 more slated to come on stream by the end of the current Iranian year (March 19, 2016), an official at the Energy Ministry said.
Ali-Akbar Shafiei said around 150 dam-building projects are underway nationwide, of which 118 are expected to be completed in the near future, Mehr News Agency reported.
"The dams under construction have the capacity to hold more than 44 billion cubic meters of water for drinking or irrigation," he said.
Iran is the world’s third leading country in dam construction, with some 200 contracting companies, 70 consultant firms and 30 corporations as well as hundreds of hydroelectric manufacturing units operating projects in 40 countries.
Over the past three decades, it has built 600 dams, an average of 20 a year, to irrigate farms and provide electricity.
Shafiei noted that developing modernized irrigation networks and drainage systems are also in the works as part of measures to curb water consumption in the agriculture sector.
Analysts say roughly 90% of the national water resources are wasted in the traditional agro sector, at a time when rainfall has reached its lowest levels in recent history.
