The new phase of a project to transfer desalinated seawater to central Iran for industrial use has registered 65% progress.
The second phase of the project to divert water from the Persian Gulf to Kerman and Yazd provinces was launched last year, the Energy Ministry’s news portal Paven reported.
It included an 850-km pipeline to annually transfer 180 million cubic meters of desalinated water from the Bandar Abbas Desalination Plant in southern Hormozgan Province to Sarcheshmeh Copper Mine in Rafsanjan County, Kerman Province, and the Chadormalu Mining and Industrial Company in Ardakan County, Yazd Province.
The first phase of the plan was launched in 2020 and supplied water to Golgohar Mining and Industrial Complex in Sirjan, Kerman. It included a desalination unit (in Bandar Abbas), 10 pumping stations, 40 water storage tanks, 14 power substations and a 150-kilovolt power transmission line from Hormozgan to Kerman and Yazd.
Of the total volume of planned water transfer, Golgohar Complex, Sarcheshmeh Copper Mine and Chadormalu Company will annually receive 45 mcm, 40 mcm and 30 mcm, respectively. The rest will be used for drinking purposes in the dry region.
With the completion of the new phase, other industries in Yazd Province will also be provided with water from the Persian Gulf and reduce their dependence on groundwater, the level of which has declined in recent years.
On average, 1 billion cubic meters of water are extracted from groundwater sources in Yazd every year resulting in severe water deficits in most plains.
Groundwater overdraft can lead to the destruction of vegetation, increase the possibility of dust storms, create sinkholes in the plains, increase salt content in groundwater and worsen land subsidence.
Yazd is in the center of Iran where two deserts Dasht-e- Kavir and Dasht-e-Lut meet. It has dry and arid climate and suffers from chronic drought. The province has a yearly precipitation of 49 millimeters and only 23 days of rainfall.
Huge Investment
The massive project has been financed by private investment and loans from Iran’s sovereign wealth fund.
Around $3.88 billion were invested for the completion of the first line. The second line, spanning 1,550 km in length, has been implemented with a total investment of $11.1 billion. About $8.3 billion have also been invested in the third line that is 910-km long and has 10 water pumping stations.
It is believed that water transfer from the Persian Gulf in the south should help alleviate the water crisis in the two industrial regions that have limited access to underground water resources and suffer from low precipitation.
The two province’s drinking water comes from wells, springs, aqueducts and dams. The desert provinces, as is the case in most other regions in Iran, have piled unsurmountable pressure on the dwindling groundwater resources.
The plains around Kerman and Yazd no longer have the capacity for deeper wells to reach groundwater and water transfer is apparently the last option.
Climate change and global warming have resulted in rising temperatures across continents and summers in Iran and other places have become much hotter compared to a quarter century ago.
Three more transmission pipelines are being laid from Hormozgan to South Khorasan Province (1,550 km), Sistan-Baluchestan (820 km) and Isfahan Provinces (920 km) to supply 550 million cubic meters of water a year.
The three planned pipelines will stretch 3,290 km from southern coasts deep into the Iranian Plateau. The total investments for the projects are expected to reach $4.9 billion.
