TEHRAN (Iran News) – Knowledge-based companies have implemented over 80 technological projects to develop new methods for optimizing water consumption over the past three years, IRNA reported on Monday.
Supported by the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology, projects are defined for the development of new methods for water extraction in order to increase the use of technologies to optimize the amount of water consumed in the country.
Another goal is to develop employment, in addition to water and drought technologies.
Conducting deepwater exploration studies in priority areas, identifying freshwater springs in coastal areas, new methods of extraction, and determining the level of suspended aquifers are among the projects.
Moreover, technologies related to water purification and desalination, technologies related to water and energy optimization, construction of greenhouses, operation of agricultural drains and industrial effluents in the development of salinization operations, exploitation of new water resources for various industrial, agricultural, and drinking purposes, are other projects.
Other water projects include the implementation of small-scale technological projects with the aim of creating employment through the cultivation of drought-resistant plant species with the aim of desertification and creating added value by producing processed products.
Water resources shrinking
Renewable water resources have decreased by 30 percent over the last four decades, while Iran’s population has increased by about 2.5 times, Qasem Taqizadeh, deputy minister of energy, has stated in June.
The current water year (started on September 23, 2020) has received the lowest rain in the past 52 years, so climate change and Iran’s arid region should become a common belief at all levels, he lamented.
A recent report by Nature Scientific Journal on Iran’s water crisis indicates that from 2002 to 2015, over 74 billion cubic meters have been extracted from aquifers, which is unprecedented and its revival takes thousands of years along with urgent action.
Three Iranian scientists studied 30 basins in the country and realized that the rate of aquifer depletion over a 14-year period has been about 74 billion cubic meters, which is recently published in Nature Scientific Journal.
Also, over-harvesting in 77 percent of Iran has led to more land subsidence and soil salinity. Research and statistics show that the average overdraft from the country’s aquifers was about 5.2 billion cubic meters per year.
Mohammad Darvish, head of the environment group in the UNESCO Chair on Social Health that the situation of groundwater resources is worrisome.
More drought, water crisis
In March, Ahad Vazifeh, head of the national center for drought and crisis management, forecasted that the country will not receive much rain until the end of summer (September 23). A month later, he announced that an unprecedented drought had occurred in some parts of the country.
This is while in the following weeks, statistics showed that precipitation has declined by 60 percent in Iran over the first two months of the current [Iranian calendar] year (March 21-May 21) compared to the same period last year.
And, it dropped by 41 percent compared to the long-term average.
