Industrialists are planning to fund the project to transfer water from Oman Sea to the drought-hit Yazd Province in central Iran, which is the most realistic option to help supply water.
Yazd Governor General Mahmoud Zamani-Qomi made the statement while addressing a panel on "Yazd and Water Plight" held in the province on Monday, ISNA reported.
Zamani-Qomi added that the executive bodies have approved the initiative and the Plan and Budget Organization gave the green light to the project's feasibility study.
According to the official, the government cannot allocate financial resources to the project due to budgetary constraints, because of which a group of domestic industrialists have set up a cooperative to support the initiative financially.
"If we win people's trust, the private sector can help supply the much-needed water to the province," he said.
Zamani-Qomi noted that the project can play a key role not only in providing sustainable water, but also in creating jobs in the central province.
"Yazd is on the brink of a critical water crisis," Mohammad Mehdi Javadianzadeh, the head of Yazd regional water company, said.
"The average precipitation in the province is as low as 80 millimeters per annum, which is one-third of the whole country's rainfall. The annual water consumption in the province, with a population of 1.2 million, stands at 1,100 million cubic meters, 95% of which are supplied from dwindling underground water resources," he said.
Giving a breakdown, Javadianzadeh noted that agriculture and mining sectors consume 83% and 6% of the water respectively. Household drinking water accounts for 11% of the total consumption.
Estimates show that the province will require as much as 270 mcm of water yearly in 2046. Nonetheless, the available sources in the province can only supply 130 mcm of water.
To help different industries thrive in the region, 400 mcm of water should be transferred to the province annually by the end of the Sixth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (2017-22).
According to Javadianzadeh, groundwater resources in Yazd are either insufficient or of poor quality for drinking.
Located in a desert area, Yazd has been among the first provinces where conflicts have emerged over the issue of water.
As the water crisis worsens, tensions become more serious and are likely to spill over to other regions. Appropriate measures to adapt with the situation and manage the dwindling resources have become all the more crucial today.
