Decades of drought and steep decline in precipitation have caused water levels in Sistan-Baluchestan Province's seven dams to fall to 429 million cubic meters, almost 22% of the total capacity of 1,967 mcm, Director of the Regional Water Company said Sunday.
“The current volume of water shows a decline of 47% compared to last year when the dams had stored 815 mcm of water,” IRNA quoted Atabak Jafari as saying.
People in the north of the province get surface waters and in the central parts groundwater is the main source. In the southern regions it is a combination of the two.
However, the province's groundwater levels have also dropped by five meters over the past 16 years due to drought, Jafari said.
Iran now depends heavily on underground water resources and the worsening problem is that this too is drying up at alarming rates. According to Energy Ministry data, Iran hardly gets 242 mm of rain a year -- a third of the global average.
Sistan and Baluchestan is the second largest province in Iran, bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan. The region has been struggling with severe water shortages for two decades.
As the water crisis approaches unprecedented levels, it is posing huge risks to key socioeconomic sectors, namely health, employment, agriculture and the environment
As the water crisis approaches unprecedented levels, it is posing huge risks to key socioeconomic sectors, namely health, employment, agriculture and the environment.
The region has experienced record low rainfall in the past years. Since the start of the 2017-18 agricultural year, barely 29 millimeters of rain fell in the dry province, according to the regional meteorological research center.
Of the total 613 wells that supply water to the province, 143 have relatively normal water levels, 178 have half their usual capacity and the rest have dried up.
Furthermore, drying up of the Hamoun wetlands in the north and Jasmourian wetlands in the southwest of the province plus excessive evaporation are making a bad situation worse in terms of water supply to households and the farming community.
The pattern of drought has contributed terribly to the dangerous dust and sand storms that have given rise to health problems like respiratory illnesses and TB.
The drought has wiped out agriculture across the province in which most livelihoods are directly linked to farming and industries associated with agriculture.
More than 50% of the people of the province lives in rural areas. But that is fast changing as the Sistanis abandon their homes and villages and move to other parts of the country in search of work and survive.
According to provincial authorities, severe drought will soon force more than half a million people to migrate as policy and decision makers have been unable to find a workable solution to the worsening water crisis that is endangering the livelihood of 2.7 million people in the border regions.
