The National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company of Iran (Abfa) is willing to annually supply 50 million cubic meters of treated wastewater to Tehran Municipality for parks and green spaces, the deputy head of operations of the at company said.
“Abfa warnings notwithstanding, large volumes of reclaimed sewage from nine wastewater treatment facilities in the capital are dumped into canals and plains because of the lack of infrastructure to transfer it to the 2,000 parks in and around Tehran that cover almost 11% of the megacity’s area,” Morteza Ehteshami was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Wastewater reuse has been universally recognized as a necessary and pragmatic solution to the water crisis. However, it is regrettable that municipalities, industries and farmers in Iran’s dry and arid regions including Tehran, Hormozgan and South Khorasan insist on extracting water from depleting ground tables rather than tap into unconventional sources that is not only available but can easily meet their need, he rued.
“A paradigm shift is a must for creating and supporting an [efficient] economic system in which wastewater is and should be considered a precious resource rather than a liability.”
Tehran is zoned into 22 municipal districts, of which only Districts 1 and 2 meet a limited portion of their need from reclaimed wastewater.
Abfa pumped close to 3 million cubic meters of processed sewage for water green spaces in the two districts last year, but other districts lag behind despite knowing the need to curb water withdrawal from ground resources sooner rather than later.
Tehran Municipality annually uses 150 million cubic meters of water from ground resources.
Although the water crisis has caused serious concerns, TM officials apparently are heedless of the worsening situation as they have not stopped extracting ground resources, nor have they upheld pledges to develop infrastructure for use of reclaimed sewage.
To help curb the prohibitive use of water from the rapidly dwindling underground reserves, the Energy Ministry and TM signed a contract in 2020, based on which the latter was obliged to use recycled wastewater for green spaces. Nonetheless, TM’s obligation to extend pipeline infrastructure to transfer treated wastewater to parks has not been fulfilled yet.
“The municipality is using about 400,000 cubic meters of water every day, most of which is from underground tables that are in bad shape,” Ehteshami said.
A part of the treated wastewater is piped to southern Tehran for farming and industrial purposes, he added.
Tehran wastewater treatment plants are located in Shahrak-e Gharb, Shahrak-e Mahallati, Ekbatan Town, Zargandeh, Qeytariyeh and Sahebqaraniyeh districts, Malard (50 kilometers southwest of Tehran), Safadasht (on the province’s southwestern flank ) and Eslamshahr (a working district in the southwest).
Compulsion Not Convenience
Over the last two decades an estimated $2 billion has been spent on expanding wastewater infrastructure in the capital that is home to 12 million people and growing. But a lot more needs to be done to make those in charge realize that for restoring groundwater resources, replacing well water with treated wastewater is more effective than pushing (unsuccessfully) for judicious consumption or cloud seeding.
Wastewater treatment has long become a matter of compulsion not convenience. In addition to environmental and health benefits, wastewater treatment has economic benefits through reuse in different sectors. Its by-products, such as nutrients and biogas, can be used for farming and energy generation.
Unlike some countries, recycled wastewater is not used for drinking purposes in Iran, as it is against Islamic tenets.
According to Mohammad Shahriari, the deputy for water and hydropower affairs at the Tehran Regional Water Company, water consumption in Tehran reached a peak of 3.2 billion liters per day between March 15 and April 20 -- up 90% from the same period last year.
Alarming Trend
“The alarming uptrend is even 11% more compared over last summer days when consumption reached 2.7 billion liters per day.”
Tehran received 155 millimeters of rainfall since Sept. 23, 2021, (the beginning of the current water year), down 28% over 53 years.
The official said water flow into five dams around the capital reached 136 million cubic meters in the past three weeks, while it was 216 mcm last year, warning that the water crisis is getting worse in the province.
“Dams supplying water to Tehran, including Taleqan, Latyan, Mamlou, Karaj and Lar, now hold 452 million cubic meters of water, which is 265 mcm less than in the same period last year when it was 717 mcm.”
The five dams together can hold 2 billion cubic meters of water, but now have a deficit of 75%.
Around 30% of potable water demand in Tehran province is met through dams and the rest is extracted from underground resources, a practice that needs to be addressed effectively before the taps run dry.
