Iran sinks in water crisis

Over the past few months, Iranian officials and experts have underlined the gravity of the water shortage in the country. Last year, Al-Monitor looked at the social backlash related to the scarcity of water resources in the country, but this article focuses on the root causes of the problem and what could be done to limit the depth of the crisis.

In December 2013, Hamid Chitchian — head of the Ministry of Energy, which is in charge of regulating the water sector — stated that the sector's situation had reached “critical levels.” Chitchian correctly established that past approaches, which mainly focused on constructing dams and trying to increase the storage capacity, would no longer be appropriate remedies. In fact, total storage capacity behind the country’s many dams amounts to 68 billion cubic meters, whereas the water potential of the country’s rivers totals 46 billion cubic meters per annum.

More recently, former Minister of Agriculture Issa Kalantari said at a gathering in Ardabil that water shortage was “a major threat to the country” and that careless past consumption had depleted the country’s water resources.

The fact is, a significant section of the country’s water shortage could be resolved through improved water management schemes. Presently, 92% of the country’s water resources are used for agricultural purposes. In many cases, water resources fit for residential or industrial use are utilized in the agricultural sector, which is inefficient. Evidently, even a 5% improvement of water utilization efficiency would explode the amounts of reserves available for residential and industrial use.