Iran's Water Crisis: Drought, Mismanagement, and Overuse

ChaharMahal

Elite Member
Oct 18, 2002
16,563
261
#2
There are three issues here.

It simply does not rain as much as it used to be.

The water resources of Iran are really not enough to accommodate all the people.

Industry and Agriculture in Iran uses 90% of the water and they do a terrible job at it.


Water Management issue is the biggest issue facing Iran for the next 10 years or so.
 

ChaharMahal

Elite Member
Oct 18, 2002
16,563
261
#3
http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2014/05/140522_water_iran_problem.shtml
وزیر نیروی ایران: اگر مصرف آب مدیریت نشود، کشاورزی تعطیل می***شود
وزیر نیروی ایران می گوید با هزینه فعلی آب، کشاورزی مقرون به صرفه نیست

حمید چیت چیان وزیر نیروی ایران گفته است: اگر مصرف آب را مدیریت نکنیم و جلوی برداشت غیرمجاز از آب های زیرزمینی را نگیریم "به مرور شاهد پایین رفتن سطح آب، شوری دشت ها، خشکسالی و در نتیجه تعطیلی کشاورزی خواهیم بود."

خبرگزاری دولتی ایران، ایرنا به نقل از آقای چیت چیان نوشته که "با بازده کنونی آبیاری و همچنین هزینه ای که صرف استخراج آب می شود، تولید محصولات کشاورزی در کشور مقرون به صرفه نیست."

ایران چند سال است که دوره خشکسالی را پشت سر می گذارد و بخش های زیادی از تالاب ها و دریاچه های داخلی نظیر هامون و ارومیه خشک شده است.

گزارش***های رسمی نشان می دهد که نیمی از جمعیت ایران با کمبود آب آشامیدنی روبه رو هستند و در صورتی که شهروندان به خصوص در شهرهای بزرگ صرفه***جویی نکنند، دولت ناچار خواهد شد در تابستان آب آشامیدنی را در برخی مناطق نظیر شهر تهران جیره بندی کند.

وزارت نیرو به دنبال جدا کردن آب آشامیدنی با آب برای دیگر مصارف نظیر مصارف بهداشتی است و سعی دارد تا از این طریق بتواند مشکل آب آشامیدنی را کمتر کند اما این یک برنامه درازمدت است و هزینه زیادی نیاز دارد.

وزیر نیرو می گوید که "امیدواریم این طرح را طی چهار سال آینده عملیاتی کرده و یا دست***کم زیرساخت مناسب را برای این کار فراهم کنیم."

برخی کارشناسان خشکسالی، کمبود بارش و عدم مدیریت در استفاده از آب رودخانه***ها و احداث بی***رویه سدها را از دلایل بروز وضعیت فعلی عنوان کرده***اند.

سطح آب***های زیرزمینی نیز به دلیل استفاده بیش از حد و بی رویه از طریق حفر چاه***های عمیق به شدت افت کرده و کشاورزی ایران را با مشکل جدی رو به رو کرده است.

وزیر نیروی ایران هشدار داده که اگر مصرف آب در بخش کشاورزی و مصرف خانگی مدیریت نشود، "مشکلاتی که امروز با آن مواجه هستیم در آینده به مراتب بیشتر و پیچیده تر خواهد شد."

به گفته آقای چیت***چیان، متوسط ارزش افزوده محصولات تولیدی کشاورزی در ایران با مصرف هر مترمکعب آب حدود ۱۰ هزار ریال (۳۰ سنت) است درحالی که این رقم در کشورهای منطقه حدود دو دلار است.

وزیر نیرو در عین حال گفته که اگر الگوی کشت و آبیاری به سمت کشاورزی صنعتی سوق پیدا کند، می توان "ارزش افزوده محصولات کشاورزی را افزایش داد.

آقای چیت چیان در دیدار با محمد احمدی، استاندار فارس و اعضای کمیسیون آب مجلس تاکید کرده که "باید محدودیت هایی در مصرف آب ایجاد کنیم تا در آینده مشکلات بیشتری برای مردم ایجاد نشود."

استاندار فارس در این دیدار گفته که به دلیل سوء مدیریت ها، "بهایی که استان فارس برای تبدیل شدن به قطب کشاورزی کشور پرداخت کرد بسیار سنگین بود."

به گفته استاندار فارس، استفاده از شیوه های سنتی در کشاورزی، افزایش بی رویه سطح زیرکشت و برداشت های بی رویه از سفره های آب زیر زمینی خسارت***های جبران ناپذیری به استان فارس وارد کرده است.
 
Feb 22, 2005
6,884
9
#6
Impossible. Are you saying the representative of the one god, the creator of the universe, Allah, the Islamic god, on earth are incapable of managing the simplest of his gifts, the water and running out? Blasphemy, the unbeliever. You will burn in hell and will not get your 72 virgins.

There are three issues here.

It simply does not rain as much as it used to be.

The water resources of Iran are really not enough to accommodate all the people.

Industry and Agriculture in Iran uses 90% of the water and they do a terrible job at it.


Water Management issue is the biggest issue facing Iran for the next 10 years or so.
 

ChaharMahal

Elite Member
Oct 18, 2002
16,563
261
#7
just as reference point let's compare Iran to Turkey. per Factbook Data (slightly outdated)

Iran's per capita water utilization is more than twice Turkey.
That's while our waster resources is only about 60% of what Turkey has.

Compare the agricultural output of Iran to that Turkey and the compare the water utilization.

------------Turkey ------------
Land use:

arable land: 26.21%
permanent crops: 3.94%
other: 69.84% (2011)
Irrigated land:

53,400 sq km (2012)
Total renewable water resources:

211.6 cu km (2011)
Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural):

total: 40.1 cu km/yr (14%/10%/76%)
per capita: 572.9 cu m/yr

------Iran----------
Land use:

arable land: 10.05%
permanent crops: 1.08%
other: 88.86% (2011)
Irrigated land:

87,000 sq km (2009)
Total renewable water resources:

137 cu km (2011)
Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural):

total: 93.3 cu km/yr (7%/1%/92%)
per capita: 1,306 cu m/yr (2004)
 
Jun 19, 2009
266
8
#8
Another article about Iran's water crisis:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5a5579c6-0205-11e4-ab5b-00144feab7de.html#ixzz3B5T1Shhx



Iran: Dried out

By Najmeh Bozorgmehr


Poor planning, populist policies and drought have contributed to a critical water shortage


C6AEKP Dried riverbed of Zayandeh river with Khaju Bridge in background, Isfahan Iran.©Alamy
Let the river run through it: the dried out Zayandeh Roud at Isfahan 


Farmers who worked the fertile lands around Isfahan have had to find a new way to make a living since the river at the heart of this Iranian city ran dry. Instead of raising and selling crops irrigated by the Zayandeh Roud, they are now paid to keep its parched riverbed clean and litter-free.
<!--.-->


The Zayandeh Roud, or “life-giving river”, has flowed through the ancient city for more than 1,000 years en route from its source in the Zagros Mountains in the west of the country to the vast wetlands of Gavkhooni in the south of the Isfahan region. But the riverbed now resembles a vast, gravelly beach, a dead stretch of sun-baked land that winds through the heart of Isfahan, a five-hour drive south of Tehran.

“No water in this river means I had to leave my farmlands in the town of Varzaneh and work for the Isfahan municipality for 15,000 tomans [$5.6] per day,” says Afshin as he cuts weeds on the riverbed.

The drying out of the river means about 2m people – 40 per cent of the population – in the Zayandeh Roud basin who depend on agriculture have lost their income, says Mostafa Hajjeh-Foroush, head of the agriculture committee of the Isfahan Chamber of Commerce. “If this situation continues they should think of changing jobs,” he adds.

The water that disappeared – a result largely of mismanagement and overuse rather than drought – is stored at the Zayandeh Roud dam and diverted for domestic and industrial consumption, leaving the city’s 11 river bridges standing as symbols of what is missing.

Residents say the loss is overwhelming. “When I see the Zayandeh Roud dried, I feel I am drying, too,” says Fereydoun, a 27-year-old taxi driver.

The choking of the river has had a profound effect on a city that was built around the Zayandeh Roud in the same way that London grew up around the Thames and Paris around the Seine.

But Isfahan’s plight is just one example of a water crisis in a country gripped by 14 successive years of drought. Iran is hardly alone in facing a water shortage but its problems are acute. A growing population and shrinking economy make the situation difficult, but its position at the centre of a politically unstable region where competition for water is intense makes it dangerously volatile.

Thousands of villages rely on water tankers for supplies, according to local media, while businessmen complain shortages are a daily hazard in factories around Tehran. At least a dozen of the country’s 31 provinces will have to be evacuated over the next 20 years unless the problem is addressed, according to a water official who declined to be named.

The situation may be even worse than that, says Issa Kalantari, a reform-minded agriculture minister in the 1990s. “Iran, with 7,000 years of history, will not be liveable in 20 years’ time if the rapid and exponential destruction of groundwater resources continues,” he warns, adding that the shortages pose a bigger threat to Iran than its nuclear crisis, Israel or the US.

The authorities have warned of the need for water rationing, but so far they are asking only that heavy users cut back.

The crisis raises concerns about the risk of conflict in a country surrounded by unstable neighbours – most notably Afghanistan and Iraq – with water shortages of their own.
Iran water map
“Water has been a recurring source of friction with each of Iran’s neighbours,” says David Michel of the Stimson Center, an international security think-tank in Washington. “In the absence of more effective management I would expect that water issues will continue to be a flashpoint with Iran’s neighbours.”

Hassan Rouhani, the centrist president, has spoken frequently of the need to tackle the crisis since winning power last year, and has promised to reverse the populist policies of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, his predecessor, who is accused by reformist politicians and environmentalists of making the problem worse.

But the reforms require money, and Iran’s economy is struggling under the weight of international sanctions imposed over its nuclear programme.

“Last year was a really bad year because of sanctions and a lack of sufficient funds,” says Alireza Parastar, director-general at the agriculture ministry, hinting at one of the reasons water reforms were set back.

Western officials are also reluctant to offer help on water conservation measures, say international experts.

“Supporting those in Iran who wish to reverse environmental management problems and reduce future threats from climate change is in the planet’s interest as well as Iran’s,” says Gary Lewis, resident representative of the UN development programme in Tehran. “Environmental challenges, especially water, ought to be the real future human security priority for Iran.”

Iran’s water problems are largely of its own making. Although it only gets about 200mm of rain a year, about a third of the global average, and 75 per cent of it falls on only 25 per cent of its area, it has a notable history of water engineering. It has built impressive dams and invented the ancient system of qanats, vertical shafts connected by gently sloping tunnels that channel water from higher regions with no need for pumps.

However, a population that has doubled to 76m in the past 40 years has put that system under pressure, as has a changing climate that has seen rainfall decline by 16 per cent over the same period. The growth of industry in dry regions has added to the strain.

But the biggest problem is a system of generous subsidies that has encouraged wasteful use of a resource long taken for granted. The problem is most visible in the agricultural sector, which uses about 90 per cent of Iran’s water and accounts for about 15 per cent of gross domestic product.

With little incentive to use systems that conserve supplies, Iran’s farmers have flooded their crops with supplies pumped from underground sources that are often difficult to replace.

Groundwater extraction nearly quadrupled between the 1970s and the year 2000, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, while the number of wells rose fivefold.

Analysts say more than $100bn in investment is needed over the next decade to improve irrigation systems and replace water-intensive crops such as wheat. At the same time, work is needed to curb the desertification and deforestation that have grown at an alarming pace, mainly because of overgrazing of livestock.

“The country’s 84.9m hectares of pasture can feed only 37m cattle rather than the current 83m and over 120 days each year rather than 200 days,” says Ali Mohammad Tahmasebi, an authority on deserts at the ministry of agriculture. “Shepherds do not face any limits.”

Though the roots of Iran’s water crisis go back decades, the problem grew much worse under Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, president between 2005 and 2013, according to reform-minded academics and former officials.

To curry favour with rural voters, he allowed management of Iran’s water to shift from the central government to the provinces. Isfahan was a victim of the move.

In 2006, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad visited Chaharmahal Bakhtiari, the mountainous province west of Isfahan and the source of the Zayandeh Roud, and announced that local farmers would have priority access to water.

The move encouraged farmers in the province to plant water-intensive crops. But as the neighbouring provinces of Yazd and Kashan grew, the Zayandeh Roud was used to supply them with water. Isfahan farmers began to run short.

They reacted by mounting protests – some of which turned violent – to highlight the diversion of water that they regarded as theirs. The farmers have vowed to block projects that could channel water toward Isfahan city, Yazd and Kashan.

About 1,000 farmers in the east of the province last year drove their tractors 100km to the city of Isfahan and destroyed valves on pipelines carrying water to the city of Yazd. The protest led to clashes with riot police. There was further unrest in the spring of 2014 when farmers threatened further protests if the river stayed dry. The central government in Tehran promised them compensation and said the river would flow in autumn so they could plant crops.

But Ali, a 24-year-old farmer, says his tractor is always ready to head to Isfahan. “We want our historical right which was given to us for thousands of years,” he says. “I can earn 300m rials ($11,755) every year if there is water, but now the government is going to give me a compensation of 30m rials ($1,175). It is ridiculous.”

Mr Hajjeh-Foroush says that those “who benefited from the previous government’s policies” are reluctant to give up those gains.

The damage in Isfahan province has been substantial. Analysts say tens of thousands of hectares of farmland have turned to desert. More than 500m trees have died over the past four years and land has subsided – a byproduct of draining groundwater supplies – in some areas by as much as one metre, threatening the city’s historical sites.

“Mismanagement has been far more damaging than drought,” says Aliahmad Keikha, deputy head of the state-run department of environment for natural environment and biodiversity. “We could cope with drought if there was a more efficient management.”

Analysts and politicians expect conflict to widen and intensify. “Iran faces a hydro-political crisis which means national crises in the future will be rooted in a water shortage,” says Morad Kaviani Rad, a professor at Kharazmi University.

Isfahan is by no means the only visible sign of Iran’s water crisis.

Urmia Lake in the northwest is on the brink of an ecological catastrophe. About 95 per cent of it has dried up over the past two decades, mainly due to wasteful irrigation practices and drought.

In 1996, the lake stretched over 5,200 cubic kilometres and held 31bn cubic metres of water. Now it holds 1.5bn.

More than 80,000 groundwater pumps and 37 dams for irrigating farmland in the lake’s basin mean more water has left the lake than flows into it. Agricultural yields from the Urmia region, meanwhile, have generated only about $1.2bn a year.

“Reviving the lake is essential,” says Mr Kalantari, the former agriculture minister who is advising the government on measures to save Urmia. “We cannot sit idly and witness evacuation of the region.”

At $4bn, the cost of returning the lake to health would be prohibitive. It could also take about 12 years, he says. But President Rouhani has ordered the replenishment of the lake no matter the cost, a sign of the new government’s determination to tackle the water crisis.

Ministers have been ordered to draw up a plans for a new water management system, and stop the expansion of farms in arid regions and consider measures to discourage the use of groundwater pumps in stressed areas such as Urmia Lake.

Analysts say the problems Mr Rouhani faces – from international sanctions to stagflation – mean that environmental projects could take a back seat even as domestic and border tensions over water rights simmer.

The shortages in Iraq have left the Hoor al-Azim wetlands in southwest Iran, which is served by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, depleted.

Supplies from the Harirud, a border river in the northeast, have been diverted upstream in Afghanistan to irrigate its farmland, jeopardising the supply to the religious centre of Mashhad, Iran’s second-biggest city, which is facing the biggest drinking water crisis in the country.

“Mashhad will soon be a hostage to Afghanistan,” warns Mr Kaviani Rad.

The Hamouns in the southeast – three wetlands covering 5,660 sq km mostly in Iran but also in Afghanistan – which should be fed by the Helmand river have been mostly dry over the past decade. There are unconfirmed reports that villagers around Helmand have started migrating to northern provinces.

“What would remain of Iran if Urmia Lake, Zayandeh Roud and the Hamouns are erased from its map?” asks Mr Keikha. “The drying up of the Hamouns is [equivalent to] drying up of the roots of a great civilisation in the world’s east. We have not been good soldiers to safeguard this ancient land.”

Extraction technology: History washed away a qanat at a time

Qanats, the gently sloping shafts and tunnels that form Iran’s irrigation system, have been running in the country for more than 2,000 years, conveying subterranean water from mountains to plains.

But their future is at stake as the increasing use of groundwater pumps sucks aquifers dry, leading to destruction of the ancient system first developed in Persia and then extended to Asia, Africa and Europe.

Qanats are built by skilled workers who identify the mountain water source and locate the sites for vertical shafts, which are dug by hand, and then connected by gently sloping tunnels that open on to the plains below.
Entrance to an a underground aqueduct in Yazd, Iran.
©Dreamstime

The entrance to an a underground aqueduct, part of a qanat, in Yazd, Iran.

In recent decades, however, technology and greater demand have turned into the biggest threat to the system. Government authorities have been accused of failing to maintain and extend the qanats system, which could no longer meet rising demand, and did little to prevent excessive extraction through quicker and easier methods. The 36,000 qanats left in Iran – about half the number of 50 years ago – provide 14 per cent of the water needed for agriculture.

In the Shahre-Ray area of southern Tehran, where farmlands meet part of the city’s vegetable needs, there are 40 qanats, half the number that existed in the 1960s. In their place are some 1,400 pumps set up to irrigate farmlands and provide drinking water for a booming population.

“Most qanats suffer from a shortage of water or have dried up mainly because of pumps operating around them and, to a lesser extent, due to successive years of drought,” says Abdolhamid Rasekhi, an expert on Tehran’s qanats.

Another challenge is the cost of maintenance. The annual cost of dredging the 7km Karimabad Tehranchi qanat in southern Tehran, for instance, is 500m rials ($19,277).

Meanwhile, the qanat builders are not being replaced when they leave the trade, raising fears that the systems will eventually die out.

“We developed qanats and introduced them to the world, then we lost them. It’s so sad that one of the most sustainable ways of water harvesting is almost gone,” says Dr Kaveh Madani, an authority on Iran’s water at Imperial College, London.
 

TeamMeli

Elite Member
Feb 5, 2014
9,272
311
Las Vegas, NV
#9
That was a nice read, it was a bit long but nice and this is a crisis that the Iranian government needs to fix but we know that is not going to happen. I'm not going to get into the political aspect of it but you know where I am going with this. This part of the article makes me worry.

Analysts say more than $100bn in investment is needed over the next decade to improve irrigation systems and replace water-intensive crops such as wheat. At the same time, work is needed to curb the desertification and deforestation that have grown at an alarming pace, mainly because of overgrazing of livestock.

How in the hell is Iran going to come up with that kind of cash. Foreign investment with all of the sanctions going on? Not likely. We are on our own and it's going to get worse before it get's better. Oh and I'm sure they were talking about 100bn tooman not 100bn USD(at least I hope it's not 100b USD).
 

ChaharMahal

Elite Member
Oct 18, 2002
16,563
261
#12
feasibility of water desalination.

per this 1391 article Iranian potable water use in one day is 265 Liter/ per capita.
http://alef.ir/vdcjatevtuqeavz.fsfu.html

This means the 80 million Iranians use 21,200,000,000 Liters
which means the 80 million Iranians use 7,738,000,000,000 Liters per annum.

This converts to 2,044,147,460,000 gallons of water.
With Current technology It costs an average of $4/1000 Gallons to desalinate water
So the cost of desalination of water for household use would amount to something like 8,176,589,840 ($8 Billion per year)

Of course there are other complexities such as pumping water long distance (very expensive).
These units normally have to be built in conjunctions with power generation units.

This does not even start to address the water use by Ag Sector of Iran.

source for desalination studies:
http://www.watereuse.org/sites/default/files/u8/WateReuse_Desal_Cost_White_Paper.pdf
http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/innovat...How_much_does_seawater_desalination_cost.pptx
 

Bache Tehroon

Elite Member
Oct 16, 2002
39,533
1,513
DarvAze DoolAb
www.iransportspress.com
#13
I don't understand, if 90% of the water in Iran is really used by agriculture, why exactly does it matter to spend money on reducing household consumption?

Even if cities in Iran suddenly stop consuming water, we're still screwed aren't we? Why bother with trying to reduce urban usage then?

The video you posted from BBC Farsi shows how clueless these so called "experts" can be. The university professor clearly knows how 'cheap' water is in Iran, yet he advocates the government to ask people to consume less! LOL! What a solution!

Not a single one of them suggested doubling, or tripling the price of water for agriculture use, which is exactly what needs to be done as a first step.

And $8-10B/year is not a bad price for household water for a country the size of Iran. As you said, it would be pointless as industry and agriculture would require 10 times that investment to remain sustainable.
 

ChaharMahal

Elite Member
Oct 18, 2002
16,563
261
#14
I don't understand, if 90% of the water in Iran is really used by agriculture, why exactly does it matter to spend money on reducing household consumption?
It is public awareness strategy. The same thing happens in the west.
in Texas there is stage 1 water restriction, Stage 2, Stage 3
Stage 1 (you can only water your lawn one day a week)
Stage 2 (Can't wash car and ..)
stage 3 (in restaurants you must explicitly ask them to refill your glass of water).

It is the way to tell the entire society hey we are all in it together. it makes no mathematical sense.
but according to some sociology theories it makes easier to have an entire mass get behind an idea.

Even if cities in Iran suddenly stop consuming water, we're still screwed aren't we? Why bother with trying to reduce urban usage then?
well villages are were poor people in Iran live. if you ask them to sacrifice you can't politically not ask
the urban population not to share the burden.

The video you posted from BBC Farsi shows how clueless these so called "experts" can be. The university professor clearly knows how 'cheap' water is in Iran, yet he advocates the government to ask people to consume less! LOL! What a solution!
It is an idea to tell people water is not free resource. I agree it is not effective.
but somehow you need to get that stupid psyche out of Iranian mind that your water will be free. your electricity free (khomeini's impractical promises)


Not a single one of them suggested doubling, or tripling the price of water for agriculture use, which is exactly what needs to be done as a first step.
Water currently for farmers is basically free. (sometimes they pay fees for renewal or initial water right registration).
They also have to bribe people from Water Board.
If they can afford deep wells They draw water from aquifer. most of IRanian Qanatas have gone dry because of the deep wells.
when you buy a piece of land (even in the U.S) there is "Hagh Abeh" (water right) associated with that farm land.
that either lets you draw from Qanat on schedule or from a well or from the river.
the issue is that Iran's actual arable land is only like 10% of the country.
but since sazandegi administration the amount of Iranian hectares under farming has increased in some places by 5 folds.

This was a continuation (and massive augmentation) of Shah's idiotic Eslahat Arzizi policy.
The worst part of part of this policy was telling sharecroppers. hey go take bare-land plant it for every year
and it will be yours (kind of similar western expansion of the U.S). so massive number of cooperatives started (it really took off under sazandegi) farmers pulled in resources together and created pipelines to rivers in many cases and started farming land that was not historically farmed.
This of course created other issues. in many instances new farmers had seized land that was referred to as (gavchar) of the other farms.
that is in the old days when Iran was largely a nomadic land. Farms had an adjacent land that was not planted but sheep and cows and goats could roam in it and eat vegetation. this has created hundreds of thousands court cases in Iranian courts that go years back.
Government has started mandating the river draws to be used by electricity driven pumps.
this way the government can monitor wattage of usage and control water draw that way.
but that can be circumvented by manipulating the meter or bribing officials.
And $8-10B/year is not a bad price for household water for a country the size of Iran.
well the issue is the water still tastes really bad. it is not bad for taking a shower or washing dishes.

but the more preeminent issue is that Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Mashhad, Karaj, Kermanshah, Ahavaz, Kerman, Zahedan are not exactly close
to massive reservoir of brackish water. desalination is only effective if you are withing 10 km of the water source.

It is very complicated to pump water hundreds of miles from persian gulf say to Shiraz.

The more realistic solution is to implement reclamation of water. but culturally even in the U.S have not embraced this.
let alone in Iran where they will call the water (najes).

As you said, it would be pointless as industry and agriculture would require 10 times that investment to remain sustainable.
Government will need to make a massive investment to make the switch to permanent crops
that less require less water. in 99% of Iran it makes no sense to plant Kiwi, Peach, Apricot, grapes, plums ... because they are very water intensive.

in comparison Walnuts (regina walnut) is native of Iran. Hazelnuts could work in Iran.
That's because these trees are very resistant to drought. they might not bear fruits
in one year if you don't water them enough. but at least they don't die if you them irrigate them
regularly.
historically Iranian farmers have irrigation rights every 12 days (from Ghanat). with walnut trees
you can reduce that to every month and the tree will survive (but not bear fruit).

The real issue is that in the end of the day millions of Iranian earning a living from farms
will have to lose their jobs. this will create massive instability.

They will either have to move to cities (ala another eslahat arzi that creates a massive influx of farm workers to big metros).


That's because even if you made the investment to switch crops in Iran.
Even if you made the investment to make drip irrigation real in Iran
people will just plant more land using that conserved water.

Iran will need to come up with a complex water rights market. (similar to the cap and trade idea for pollution).
where farmers can trade annual rights to water to another farmer.
the government can kick in like the U.S (started in Roosevelt era) and pay the farmer no to plant that year.

needless to say it is very complicated and i doubt there is the political will or even competence in Iranian government to go to that difficult route.
 

Bache Tehroon

Elite Member
Oct 16, 2002
39,533
1,513
DarvAze DoolAb
www.iransportspress.com
#15
Reading your post and diving a bit deeper into the water issue in Iran, I constantly get the urge to make a real estate prediction:

This thing is going to ruin the lives of millions of people and they will have no choice but to leave their villages and go to cities where 'water' is less of an issue.

Tehran will probably be treated better than all cities in Iran when it comes to water shortages. As a result, Tehran will once again encounter a housing shortage resulting in even more insane real estate prices.
 

ChaharMahal

Elite Member
Oct 18, 2002
16,563
261
#16
Tehran will probably be treated better than all cities in Iran when it comes to water shortages. As a result, Tehran will once again encounter a housing shortage resulting in even more insane real estate prices.
Yes sadly you are right.
It is real testament to Iranian ingenuity. Let' expand a city that sits on an active fault.

the most active fault reportedly runs right under Gisha which incidentally happens to be where Borj Milad is.
 

Bache Tehroon

Elite Member
Oct 16, 2002
39,533
1,513
DarvAze DoolAb
www.iransportspress.com
#17
Yes sadly you are right.
It is real testament to Iranian ingenuity. Let' expand a city that sits on an active fault.

the most active fault reportedly runs right under Gisha which incidentally happens to be where Borj Milad is.
If a quake only wiped Milad tower and its surroundings off the map, I would be ecstatic. Truth is, Tehran would become a graveyard if anything above 7 hits. The population density is borderline insane.
 

maziar95

Elite Member
Oct 20, 2002
2,285
63
39
Baltimore, MD
#18
If a quake only wiped Milad tower and its surroundings off the map, I would be ecstatic. Truth is, Tehran would become a graveyard if anything above 7 hits. The population density is borderline insane.
The problem is that most buildings in Tehran are not suited for a strong quake , I don't think Tehran is that densely populated , Tokyo is much more densely populated and its buildings will handle any strong quake.
 

ChaharMahal

Elite Member
Oct 18, 2002
16,563
261
#19
Tokyo is much more densely populated and its buildings will handle any strong quake.
It has been a while since I took that geology class in College.
but the closer you are to the epicenter the harder it becomes to build resistant buildings to Earth Quake.
couple that with that corruption of building codes in Iran and your imagination can be at work.

Also the formation of rocks (the earth crust matters a whole lot too)

if you remember the BAM earthquake epi center was actually 30KM outside the city.

Another Example was Fukushima. nuclear reactors buildings are worth easily a billion.

But since it was close to the epicenter the walls and foundation still cracked.
 

maziar95

Elite Member
Oct 20, 2002
2,285
63
39
Baltimore, MD
#20
At least some good news , water is flowing in Zayandehrood again

[video=youtube;CI8YH6grEoo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI8YH6grEoo&list=UUDo7-AWBL0quU6N6xUcNtxA[/video]