From oasis to wasteland: how Iran's Hamoun Wetlands dried up

[ای ایران]

Both sides of the country from Lake Oroumieh to Lake Hamoun are hit with environmental catastrophes. In my view, environmental degradation is the biggest threat facing Iran today.

From oasis to wasteland: how Iran's Hamoun Wetlands dried up

The Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan - once known as 'Iran’s granary', and home to the Hamoun Wetlands - is now a dustbowl. In the place of what was once a thriving oasis, powerful sandstorms have buried villages and ruined livelihoods.

More than 60% of the population relied on the wetlands for their everyday needs. But as the wetland’s principal source of water [the Helmand River, also known as the Hirmand River] was reduced to little more than a trickle, water levels started to drop. 15 years ago, it dried up completely.

The main culprit lies further upstream, across the Iranian border in Afghanistan. Here, the construction of the Kamal Khan Dam has completely blocked the river. With no source of water, the wetlands that once straddled both sides of the border and stretched well into Iran have disappeared.

If the lack of water is one problem, the massive amount of sand residue left on the pond has left a further unforeseen consequence. In Sistan and Baluchestan, powerful winds that blow from May to September - the ‘Wind of 120 Days’ –– whip up the sand and create powerful sandstorms.

According to our Observer in the region, the winds pick up so much sand from the surface of the dried-up Hamoun Wetlands that many villages have been completely buried.

Mohamad lives in the town of Zahedan.

"Sandstorms are a new phenomenon in our province. We always had lots of wind, but after the pond dried up 15 years ago we’ve now got sand and dust storms for 200 days of the year.

It’s worth mentioning the trafficking of fuel between Iran and Afghanistan. That could also have played a role in the drying up of the wetlands. They drive across the wetlands because it’s a shortcut, and that speeds up the process of soil erosion. But we shouldn’t forget that the growth of this illegal traffic is a direct consequence of the drying up of the wetlands in the first place, which left many people here without jobs.

These sand and dust storms reach everywhere imaginable. The level of air pollution here is several times higher than normal. Our province has become the center of tuberculosis in Iran.

Sometimes these storms are so big they block roads, trap people in their homes and swallow up entire villages, forcing people to leave. Last year in just a few days, 100 villages were buried in sand. Many are now ghost villages.

The problem is that Afghanistan doesn’t give Iran its share of water from the Helmand River. The river is the most important source of water for the Hamoun Wetlands. They built a dam across the Helmand in their territory and we don’t get our share of the water. They only open the gates of the dam when it’s too full and there’s a risk of a breach. That’s another problem: it leads to flooding in areas downstream which destroys homes and roads.

Our government says they are negotiating with the Afghan authorities, but they just talk. They do nothing, and nothing has changed. People say here that the United States decides what happens in Afghanistan. They don’t care about us here in Iran. On the other hand, the government of Iran has done nothing to try to stabilize the sands by using mulch or other methods."

 

[halupridol]

long time no see,,,,shifu

 

[Jaanbaz]

Damn Pakistan is being dried up by India building dams in Kashmir. There is also water conflict between Egypt and African countries on share of River Nile. Looks like there are going to be more tensions and perhaps wars for water.

 

[Lord ZeN]

Damn Pakistan is being dried up by India building dams in Kashmir. There is also water conflict between Egypt and African countries on share of River Nile. Looks like there are going to be more tensions and perhaps wars for water.

You and your propaganda.India is highly liberal when it come to water sharing.
Anyway take good of your environment Iranians.

 

[ای ایران]

Iran’s water crisis the product of decades of bad planning
By Jason Rezaian July 2

TEHRAN — Iran is headed for a water shortage of epic proportions, and little is being done to reverse a decades-long trend that has reduced the country’s water supply to crisis levels.

Changes in the global climate, a century of rampant development and heavy subsidies for water and other utilities are all contributing to a situation that is likely to get much worse.

“Our water usage is twice the world standard, and considering the situation in our country, we have to reduce this level,” Massoumeh Ebtekar, a vice president and the head of Iran’s Department of Environment, said in a recent speech.

Iranians use an average of 66 gallons of water each day. They use much less water than residents of the United States, who lead the world in using nearly 105 gallons per day, but Iran and other Middle Eastern countries do not enjoy the abundance of fresh water found in the Americas and Europe.

With Iran’s annual precipitation only a third of the global average, heavy overconsumption has ravaged its available water resources. A 2013 study by the World Resources Institute ranked Iran as the world’s 24th most water-stressed nation, putting it at extremely high risk of future water scarcity.

While Iran has several large desalination projects, and even plans to sell water to neighboring countries, converted salt water is seen as solution only for areas close to the country’s two main saltwater sources, the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, because the transportation costs of moving the water to other regions of Iran are too high.

Throughout Iran, landscapes are being transformed as scientists warn that the already arid country runs the risk of becoming a vast desert.

Lake Urmia, a salt lake in Iran’s northwest that once was the largest in the Middle East, has been depleted to just 5 percent of its former volume over only two decades. The Zayandeh River, which flowed through Iran’s heartland, is mostly a dry bed after being diverted and dammed to provide irrigation for farms.

Disappearing lakes and dried-up rivers are the outward symptoms of Iran’s water shortage, but the root causes are less visible, stemming from the techniques and habits of a more traditional and less mechanized era.

“In less than 50 years, we’ve used all but 30 percent of our groundwater supply, which took a million years to gather, and it’s getting worse and worse due to unsustainable development,” said Nasser Karami, an Iranian physical climatologist who is an associate professor at the University of Bergen in Norway.

Iran’s population has more than doubled since the 1979 revolution and has grown eightfold since 1900.

After six years of below-average rainfall, few Iranian authorities acknowledge the depth of the problem, instead offering quick-fix solutions that do little to address the looming long-term impact on Iran’s climate and landscape.

“I have repeated it several times, that if water consumption in Tehran is managed and controlled we will not need rationing this summer. If people reduce their water consumption by just 20 percent, there won’t be any need for action,” Seyed Hossein Hashemi, the governor of Tehran province, said June 20 in an interview with Jahan News.

The city of Karaj, a sprawling suburb of Tehran with 1.6 million inhabitants, recently implemented a rationing plan. Other major cities seem certain to follow suit in the coming days.

For a society that has become accustomed to heavily subsidized utilities, including water, and has never been proper educated on managing its natural resources, convincing Iranians to make adjustments will be challenging.

“We don’t realize that we’re making life for the future impossible, for our own uses today. We shouldn’t only think about living comfortably today at the expense of tomorrow,” Karami said.

Among the signs of Iranians’ disregard for water conservation are unregulated gardening taps in public parks that flow for hours on end, the widespread practice of hosing down hot and dusty concrete to cool it down and faucets that are habitually left running in kitchens around the country.

Environmental experts say that any solution will need to extend beyond conservation to include a long-term strategy to reverse the damage done to groundwater supplies in recent years.

“We’ve overexploited our groundwater, which is sort of a hidden water resource. People believe they can use it as though there is an unlimited supply. We are in a severe drought, but we could have prevented these kinds of problems, or least come up with a better plan,” said Mehdi Mirzaee, a professor of water resource management at Tehran’s Islamic Azad University.

Iran’s water problems go far beyond the everyday consumption habits of its nearly 80 million citizens. Agricultural use, which accounts for 90 percent of Iran’s water usage according to statistics released by the Islamic republic’s Environmental Protection Organization in May, is also in need of reform. State estimates put the amount of water wasted in agricultural irrigation at 60 percent.

“Going back 3,000 years, our ancestors knew where to grow, where not to and how to use water and irrigate their land wisely. But we have put aside all their valuable experiences and ruined lands and water resources by digging wells, diverting water and creating and abandoning dams,” said Bijan Farhang Darehshori, an Iranian environmental activist.

 

[Esfand]

To the people that jumped up and down when Iranian border guards were abducted to Pakistan: Why are you so quiet now? People's lives are still in danger.

Don't like to speak of domestic problems??


@haman10 @Serpentine @Abii @SOHEIL @kollang @.....

 

[Abii]

To the people that jumped up and down when Iranian border guards were abducted to Pakistan: Why are you so quiet now? People's lives are still in danger.

Don't like to speak of domestic problems??


@haman10 @Serpentine @Abii @SOHEIL @kollang @.....

I have talked about this before, but all the pro IR members here are too brain dead to notice the problems (or that they just don't want to talk about it as it makes their precious akhoond led country look bad). Rmi5 has also talked about it.

The biggest problem is 6th century farming in Iran. Modern farming techniques have never entered the country so water is being wasted on an astronomical level. Plus, the country has a semi communist economic system where production of every type of produce and commodity is encouraged and seen as an "achievement," whether or not the end product brings about a net negative value to Iran's bottom line and regardless of the opportunity cost for that particular widget.

People do waste water a lot in Iran, but the biggest problem is the ancient farming techniques and industry.

 

[SOHEIL]

Agree about the crap farming system ...

 

[rmi5]

I have talked about this before, but all the pro IR members here are too brain dead to notice the problems (or that they just don't want to talk about it as it makes their precious akhoond led country look bad). Rmi5 has also talked about it.

The biggest problem is 6th century farming in Iran. Modern farming techniques have never entered the country so water is being wasted on an astronomical level. Plus, the country has a semi communist economic system where production of every type of produce and commodity is encouraged and seen as an "achievement," whether or not the end product brings about a net negative value to Iran's bottom line and regardless of the opportunity cost for that particular widget.

People do waste water a lot in Iran, but the biggest problem is the ancient farming techniques and industry.

What do you expect from Akhounds? Do you expect them to go for the latest technologies, and having smart plans, ... ?
Dude, they literally have a 13-14 centuries ago mindset.

As far as their supporters are concerned, the Taqqiya, and saving face, and boasting BS is the core pillar of the life of retarded parts of Iran society. BTW, akhound supporters are 3-4 millennium more backward than akhounds. In an intellectual level, they should have chased rabbits in jungles to hunt them, and not have access to internet and 21st century, by now.

If you take these two paragraphs into considerations, then everything would make sense for you.

 

[SOHEIL]

^^^

When a troll having a multiply orgasms !