In spite of efforts to raise public awareness, water crisis has not caught people’s attention, Rahim Meydani, Ministry of Energy’s deputy for water and wastewater said.
“Due to exaggerations often made in the media, it appears that the issue is being blown out of proportion just to raise the budgets. But the truth is that water scarcity has never been so critical before,” he told ILNA.
Meydani said like other quantitative phenomena, water crisis is measurable, but people do not take it seriously until their tap water runs dry.
“There is an imbalance between water resources and withdrawal. Iran is expected to deal with drought for another 20 years,” he said.
Meydani urged the public and officials to take a page from countries that have successful water management protocols in place despite having less renewable water resources than Iran.
“Iran’s available water per capita is 1,530 cubic meters, while there are countries that fare well with less than 800 cubic meters of water per capita,” he said.
The official warned against the depletion of groundwater resources and said aggressive exploitation of aquifers will render them dry in 15 years.
