“According to the maps we have prepared, 270 million hectares in Iran’s neighboring countries are the origin of sand and dust particles, 90 million hectares of which are located in Saudi Arabia, followed by 24 million hectares in Iraq and four million hectares in Syria,” Salajegheh said.

Negotiations are underway through third-party countries with Saudi Arabia in order to persuade it to increase cooperation, Mehr quoted Salajegheh as saying on Monday.

The SDSs phenomenon has been plaguing the country for several years and has caused problems in many provinces. According to experts, natural and human factors are involved in the occurrence and severity of this phenomenon which is mainly caused by excessive consumption of water and drying up reservoirs.

Controlling sand and dust storms requires strengthening diplomacy, and the problem will never be eradicated unless through reaching an international consensus. Over the past two years, the precipitation rate has been on a downward trend, as a result, sources of sand and dust storms (SDSs) have increased compared to a year before, Ahad Vazifeh, head of the national center for drought and crisis management has said.

Controlling sand and dust storms (SDSs) requires strengthening diplomacy, and it will never be eradicated unless international institutions reach a consensus.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, Iran’s Prosecutor General, has said building several dams over the Aras border river and constructing walls on the zero point of the border by Turkey has led to a spread of sand and dust storms into western and southern parts of Iran.

Turkey’s dam buildings over the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq have caused the desert-covered country to suffer from heavy SDS. The problematic issue here is that these dust and sand storms come from Iraq to Iran, thus disrupting normal life in the border province of Khuzestan.

Dariush Gol Alizadeh, head of Iran’s National Climate Change Office (NCCO) of the Department of Environment, told IRNA in May that the hotspots of the dust which haunted the country were in eastern Syria, western Iraq, as well as Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

These dust sources have appeared many years ago, and due to the drought and water shortages that have occurred in recent years, they have both intensified and increased in number. In fact, abandoned agricultural lands in those countries are a source of SDSs, he explained.

If serious action is not taken in the form of diplomacy and international institutions do not comply with the requirements to eradicate SDSs, the countries will always be haunted by the phenomenon, he lamented.

Tehran meeting

Tehran will host an international meeting on controlling sand and dust storms in July, with the presence of the ministers of 12 countries that give rise to the highest amount of dust, IRNA reported.

It is therefore planned to implement a regional action plan for the Persian Gulf, especially for the countries with the highest dust emissions, Ali Mohammad Tahmasebi, head of the national working group for SDS mitigation, stated.

“There are numerous bilateral and multilateral agreements with neighboring countries, including Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, but no operational action has been taken, so the agreement alone is not enough and this issue should be resolved with the help of international institutions.

Two sub-action plans have been developed for West Asia, including Iraq, Syria, Iran, and the Persian Gulf, and for Central Asia, including its eastern, northern, and northeastern neighbors, including Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which should be implemented with the cooperation of the United Nations Economic and Social Organization for Asia and the Pacific (SCAP), the Asia-Pacific Center for Development of Disaster Information Management (APDIM), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), he explained.

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Determining and monitoring the water needs of the wetlands and rivers, implementing wetland protection and rehabilitation programs, preparing a comprehensive wetland management plan with an ecological approach, and monitoring the country’s wetlands are the main activities of the DOE to protect wetlands, she explained.

Lack of water rights of reservoirs, illegal land-use changes in wetlands, entry, and spread of invasive species, entry of biological, chemical, and physical pollutants of agricultural lands, cities, villages, and industries; implementation of large development projects and infrastructures such as roads, petrochemicals, refineries, airports, energy transmission lines in wetlands without environmental assessment; improper use and excessive water withdrawal, climate change and legal deficiencies are among the challenges threatening the wetlands in Iran.

Pointing out that not providing the water rights of wetlands has long-term destructive effects, she said that increasing the salinity of the wetland, reducing habitat capacity, severely reducing the ability of wetlands to support the livelihood of local communities, and drying of wetlands are the most important destructive effects.

One of the intensifying effects of wetland degradation is the conversion of large parts of them to the source of SDSs, and in some cases, its effects have crossed the borders and affected large parts of the globe, she lamented.

Out of 226 wetlands nationwide, 42 are the hotspots of SDSs, including Hour Al-Azim, Shadegan, Urmia, Hamoon, Miqan, Salehieh, Bakhtegan, etc, she said.

Currently, 43 percent of the country’s wetlands are prone to give rise to dust storms, which means that if their water needs are not met, they can become new centers of dust in the country, she also noted.

Wetlands importance

Wetlands are indispensable for the countless benefits or “ecosystem services” that they provide humanity, ranging from freshwater supply, food and building materials, and biodiversity, to flood control, groundwater recharge, and climate change mitigation.

Yet study after study demonstrates that wetland area and quality continue to decline in most regions of the world. As a result, the ecosystem services that wetlands provide to people are compromised.

Managing wetlands is a global challenge and the Convention presently counts 172 countries as Contracting Parties, which recognize the value of having one international treaty dedicated to a single ecosystem.

The Ramsar Convention uses a broad definition of wetlands. This includes all lakes and rivers, underground aquifers, swamps and marshes, wet grasslands, peatlands, oases, estuaries, deltas, tidal flats, mangroves, and other coastal areas, coral reefs, and all human-made sites such as fish ponds, rice paddies, reservoirs, and salt pans.

The Convention on Wetlands is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.

It was adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971 and came into force in 1975. Since then, almost 90% of UN member states, from all the world’s geographic regions, have acceded to become “Contracting Parties”.

In Iran, 141 wetlands with ecological value with an area of over 3 million hectares have been identified, of which 25 wetlands are designated as wetlands of international importance (registered in the Ramsar Convention) covering more than 1.4 million hectares and four sites are biosphere reserves.

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The concentration of fine dust was recorded as 50 times above the standard range in some cities of the province.

Due to the intensity of PM concentration, the schools in all educational levels in the southern cities of the province were held online on Saturday, IRIB reported.

Also, the activities of the offices in these areas started with a 2-hour delay. The concentration of dust canceled flights of Ilam Airport.

Ali Mohammad Tahmasebi, head of the national working group for SDSs mitigation, said that internal dust sources estimated at 34.6 million hectares, generate an average amount of 4.22 million tons of dust per year, of which 122.7 kilograms is raised per hectare annually.

Of this area, about 1.4 million hectares are from arid wetlands and about 2.5 to 3 million hectares are in habitats managed by the Department of Environment. Other areas are in agricultural lands, rangelands, and deserts, which is managed by the Forests, Rangelands, and Watershed Management Organization, he explained.

A 10-year national plan has also been drawn up to deal with internal SDS hotspots, in which the task of all related bodies is specified, he stated, IRNA reported.

The total dust density is estimated at about 150 million tons and 540 kg of specific dust per hectare, which is about 3 times more than the dust generated in the country.

$2.1 billion damage to 6 provinces

“We conducted a study for 6 provinces of Khuzestan, Ilam, Kermanshah, Sistan-Baluchestan, South Khorasan, and Hormozgan. Based on which, this phenomenon incurred a loss of about 590 trillion rials (nearly $2.1 billion) in a 3-year period,” he stated.

The destruction has occurred in different sectors of agriculture, household, industry, health, etc. Studies show that about 54 percent of the total damage was related to various agricultural sub-sectors alone, he lamented, emphasizing, a proper plan can prevent such considerable harm.

€370 million to combat SDSs

In the past four years, about €370 million has been spent from the National Development Fund to combat SDSs, which had good results, but it seems that the annual credit is declining as conditions improve, he added.

Last [Iranian calendar] year (March 2019-March 2020), €100 million was earmarked in this regard, but the next year’s budget bill has proposed €20 million for SDS mitigation, which experts believe will even destroy those measures, he explained.

“However, various measures have been taken to fight the phenomenon, including, planting seedlings on about 26,000 hectares of dust centers in the past three years, as well as managing grazing in 2 million hectares of the protected areas and natural resources.”

Conservation agriculture (sustainable agriculture) was conducted on 160,000 hectares of farming lands, in addition to 100,000 hectares of dredging, he concluded.

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