By Mahmoud Hakamian
Iran is burning with a water crisis that, according to regime officials, has now turned into one of the country’s six super challenges.
But what are the dimensions of the crisis and how much has it grown?
“According to Water and Wastewater Company’s monitoring office, of the 334 water stressed cities across the country, 107 are marked in red, meaning that they are highly exposed. The list includes such big cities like Isfahan, Shiraz, Bandar-Abbas, Bushehr, Kerman and Mashhad,” reports regime’s Khabar TV channel on May 3, 2018.
Also in this regard, Rouhani government’s Energy Minister ‘Reza Ardakanian’ says “it’s predicted that 334 cities with a total population of 35 million be exposed to water stress this coming summer.” (State-run Tasnim news agency, April 22, 2018)
Earlier, regime’s head of Environment Department ‘Isa Kalantari’ had also warned over the country’s drought crisis, saying “if we keep going on like this, 70 percent of the country’s population, accounting for 50 million, will have to emigrate from the country to stay alive. More than 150 billion cubic meters of the country’s total 200 billion groundwater resources has been used up and if we keep exploiting at the current rate, there’ll be no water resources left for the country’s future generations. In addition to the groundwater, we are also totally exploiting our renewable water resources.”(State-run Khabaronline website, April 23, 2018)
According to regime’s Ministry of Energy, Iran’s annual water consumption is about 97 billion cubic meters. That’s while the country’s total groundwater resources is estimated to be only 88 billion, meaning that 110 percent of the country’s renewable water resources are being used. This is a really horrific disaster, particularly considering that no country in the world is allowed to consume more than 40 percent of its renewable water resources.
What factors have given rise to the country’s super challenge of a water crisis?
70 percent of Iran’s water consumption belongs to the country’s agriculture, while 22 percent is used by the industry sector. As the regime is the record holder of holding the country back, Iran’s agriculture is still based on flood irrigation, the same irrigation method that was practiced during the Median Empire nearly 2700 years ago, so that more than 80 percent or nearly 54 billion cubic meters of water used in agriculture is wasted due to lack of modern technology. (Journalists Club, May 21, 2018)
Due to this type of outdated irrigation method, producing such agricultural crops like wheat, apple, potato, and other highly water-consuming products are several times more costly compared to their world prices. This means that rather than upgrading the Median type agriculture to the modern and mechanized one, the country’s water resources have been destroyed under the pretext of self-sufficiency.
The next detrimental factor is regime’s dam-building policy. While there was only 30 dams in Iran before the 1979 revolution, the number of the country’s small and big dams has now reached to 647, with another 683 either under construction or planned to be built.
While regime’s unrestricted dam-building policy has irreparably hurt and actually swallowed the country’s water resources, the Revolutionary Guards has been the one and only beneficiary of the policy, making huge profits throughout the entire process of designing, constructing and exploiting dams.
Besides, the dams are mainly used by regime’s military and other industries that are run by the Revolutionary Guards and other state-owned entities. As an instance, Isfahan’s Mobarakeh Steel Company, as the country’s biggest steel producer, consumes nearly 27 million cubic meter of water. In comparison, the city of Isfahan’s total water consumption is about 476 million, according to the city’s Water and Wastewater Company. This means that the water consumed by the Astan-e-Quds and Basij owned factory equals nearly six percent of Isfahan’s total water consumption.
Having been set up in a totally wrong place, there are still other highly water-consuming factories in the city, including Isfahan’s Zob Ahan, Petrochemical, Refinery, pipe manufacturing and textile industries.
Digging deep water wells is also another factor leading to destruction of the country’s water resources. The country’s 754 thousand water wells, of which 301 thousands are unpermitted, have played a major role in destroying the country’s groundwater resources. While the number of water wells in 1979 was only 36,000, the figure is now 20 times higher despite the fact that the country’s population has only doubled during the period. This is totally due to an extensive corruption among regime officials who are bribed into giving permits to regime-linked entities, the Revolutionary Guards in particular, to dig deep water wells, thereby plundering Iran’s groundwater as well as nonrenewable water resources.
The regime meanwhile insists on less water usage while trying to put the blame for water shortage on people and households’ excessive water consumption, thus to justify the increased water prices. But is it really the households’ consumption that has led to the country’s water crisis?
According to regime’s Khabar TV channel on April 24, 2018, the country’s per capita water consumption is between 150 and 160 liters a day, which could be reduced to world standard’s 110 liter without affecting the living quality.
But let’s assume that Iranian consumers reduce their water consumption not to 110 liters a day, but to zero. Will that resolve the country’s water crisis? We’ll soon find out:
Considering Iran’s 81 million population, the country’s maximum annual water consumption will be 4.75 billion cubic meters, assuming that each person consumes 160 liters of water every day. This accounts for less than five percent of the country’s 97-billion-cubic-meter water consumption. It’s clear that at only 5 percent, households’ water consumption can’t play a major part in the country’s water crisis.
In short, regime’s unrestricted dam-building policy at the cost of destroying country’s forests and wetlands, an extremely outdated agriculture, stealing water and diverting it to the military and other industries run by the Revolutionary Guards, and excessively digging water wells, among others, are the major factors that have destroyed the country’s water resources and exposed many of Iran’s provinces to an unprecedented water stress.