TEHRAN – Some two-thirds of the country’s groundwater resources are annually consumed by water wells which are used for irrigation, an expert on water resources has said.

Irrigation wells account for some 65 percent of the total water use in Iran, Fars quoted Mohammad Pourhamid as saying.

Excessive water outtake from underground resources could lead to major environmental problems in the country, he warned.

The report cited figures from the Energy Ministry showing that the number of irrigation wells in the country has exceeded 1.02 million with an annual water outtake of 41.367 billion cubic meters (bcm) over the calendar year to March 2022.

Pourhamid said the water management system in Iran needs to pay more attention to the underground resources amid warnings that rising outtake, which is taking place with the purpose of increasing agricultural output, could pose major risks to the livelihoods of farmers and rural communities in Iran in the future, Press TV reported.

The figures showed that with some 5.7 bcm of outtake, the southeastern province of Kerman had recorded the largest use of water from irrigation wells in the year to March 2022.

The province of Mazandaran in the northern part of the country had the largest number of irrigation wells over the same period with over 196,000 wells, the figures showed.

The report also said the average outtake of water from an irrigation well in the country was 40,527 cubic meters per year, or an average of 111 cubic meters per day, over the year to March 2022.

Modern irrigation systems

The establishment of modern irrigation systems is one of the comprehensive plans that has been the focus of national officials for about three decades to deal with the excessive consumption of water in the agriculture sector of the country.

The implementation of smart irrigation policies in the agriculture sector is a national plan in response to the situation of successive droughts in Iran, which was planned and slowly implemented in the country over the past three decades.

Based on the standards of the Ministry of Agriculture, the implementation of modern irrigation systems projects has caused a reduction in water consumption by 30 to 80 percent, so the ministry is seriously following up the implementation of these projects throughout the country.

The plan aims to increase the productivity of water and soil resources in the country to ensure the sustainable production of agricultural products.

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 putting a devastating and increasingly unsustainable strain on households’ health, and income in addition to encouraging negative social trends and coping mechanisms.

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).

MG