TEHRAN – The 8th festival of "Science for All", focusing on environmental concerns, water crisis, and water resource management, kicked off online on Saturday.

Held concurrent with the World Science Day for Peace and Development, the festival started with the theme of environment in five sections; including the introduction of indigenous technologies of water resources management, storytelling, radio show, science fiction writing, and painting.

Stories from Iran's environment have been released in the form of motion videos, in the dialects and languages common in Iran in order to teach coexistence and love for the environment and the importance of protecting it to children under 12 years old.

Also, introducing indigenous technologies of resource management water is targeted in Iran, and the radio show consists of three short stories with the need to pay attention to the issue of Iran's climate.

The painting section titled "Myths of Water, Apush, and Tishtar", is related to the ancient mythological stories, related to the fight of Tishtar (rain angel) with Apush (demon of drought) and has been told in different ways since ancient times and is a sign of the importance of water. 

Some 58 paintings and 60 stories have been received. 

Droughts may affect three-quarters of the world by 2050

The United Nations has warned that droughts may affect over three-quarters of the world’s population by 2050.

Droughts are among the greatest threats to sustainable development, especially in developing countries, but increasingly so in developed nations too.

The number and duration of droughts have increased by 29 percent since 2000, as compared to the two previous decades (WMO 2021). When more than 2.3 billion people already face water stress, this is a huge problem. More and more of us will be living in areas with extreme water shortages, including an estimated one in four children by 2040 (UNICEF). No country is immune to drought (UN-Water 2021).

The Iranian Red Crescent Society estimates that 4.8 million people are at medium to high risk of drought-related impacts, mostly in remote and rural areas of the provinces.

It reports that 29 of 31 provinces, and especially seven – South Khorasan, Kerman, Sistan-Baluchestan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Isfahan, and Khorasan Razavi – have been severely affected by the drought. The lack of safe and sufficient water supply for drinking, hygiene, agriculture, animal husbandry, and electrical power is having a devastating and increasingly unsustainable strain on households’ health, and income in addition to encouraging negative social trends and coping mechanisms.

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