Members of the parliament approved an article on Wednesday, based on which the Energy Ministry will attract investment for desalinating water from the Sea of Oman to transfer it to the underprivileged Sistan-Baluchestan Province.
According to the article, the Energy Ministry is mandated to implement the project with the help of the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade and the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology, ISNA reported.
Studies to transfer water from the Sea of Oman to three eastern provinces were completed last year. Extraction, desalination and transfer of water from the Oman Sea to Sistan-Baluchestan, South Khorasan and Khorasan Razavi provinces, which have been long suffering from acute water shortages, are among measures taken by the government to combat drought and help ease access to water in the provinces.
Based on the estimates, water will be transferred to the three provinces via a pipeline stretching over 1,530 km.
However, Sistan-Baluchestan has been prioritized, as a perpetual drought is accompanied by a drastic decline in rainfall, worsening the water crisis in the southeastern province.
On average, the southeast region gets about 60 mm of annual rainfall in autumn and winter, while winter is the rainiest season with more than 50% of annual rainfall. However, last winter, precipitation reached 0.4 mm, which was the lowest in 50 years.
According to the provincial Water and Wastewater Company, water supply to Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchestan, with a population of 900,000 people, is as low as 150,000 cubic meters per day, which is adequate for only 300,000 residents.
Chabahar is another parched region that needs at least 354,000 cubic meters of water per day.
The government is duty-bound to supply water without harming the environment. To find the least costly mode, multifaceted studies on the ecological and environmental conditions of the area as well as the environmental impact of different water transfer strategies have been carried out.
As the last option to tackle the water crisis in the three eastern provinces, it is expected that with the full implementation of the water transfer project, an estimated 750 million cubic meters of freshwater will be supplied annually to Sistan-Baluchestan, South Khorasan and Khorasan Razavi for drinking and industrial use.
South Khorasan Dams 20% Full
Water conditions for the eastern South Khorasan Province is not better than its southern neighbor Sistan-Baluchestan either, despite higher rainfall of last week.
“Taking into account the amount of precipitation during the last week, currently the dams in the province are 20% full,” the managing director of South Khorasan Regional Water Company said.
“In recent days, the average rainfall has increased by 21% compared to the same period of last year,” Saeed Sarvari was also quoted as saying by ISNA.
Annual water consumption in South Khorasan is 1 billion cubic meters, of which 900 million cubic meters are used by farmers.
Due to the lack of permanent rivers and no connection to the sea, water in the border and desert province is supplied from groundwater sources, including wells, springs and aqueducts, which are drying up due to extensive extraction for farming and non-agricultural use.
Wells account for 63% of the water need, with 250 mcm extracted from underground aqueducts and the rest from dams.
However, because of poor and aging infrastructures, 32% and 42% of drinking water are wasted in urban and rural areas of the province respectively, which are higher than the national average.
