Integrated Water Resources Management in Esfahan (Iran)
Results of the Exploratory Study
With the current water use patterns the water management actors in the Zayandeh Rud river basin are confronted with the challenge of providing sufficient water resources for the various user groups in the face of increasing demands. The river currently provides water for over 3 million people in the river basin and over another 1.5 million people in small and large cities hundreds of kilometers outside the Zayandeh Rud river basin. In addition, the river provides irrigation water for over 260.000 ha of farmland and tries to meet the demands of the second largest industrial area of Iran. The discharge area of the Gav Khuni receives for years a maximum of 30 Million m3/a of water. This is less than half of the amount of water which is necessary to sustain the wetland habitat for fauna and flora.
Simultaneously, the water system of the catchment area suffers due to permanent overuse of the water resources and the introduction of industrial and communal waste water as well as run-off from agricultural areas which leads to the degradation of both surface and ground water. Many villages beside the river are not connected to a sewage system and deposite their waste directly into the river or through soakaways (which creates increasing problems for groundwater). The urban water treatment plants produce bad results and an integrated quality management plan for the river does not exist.
Despite the lack of water capacity and declining of water quality, those responsible are working with the assumption that all of the various user groups will increase their demand for water. Even optimistic estimations see an increase in the water deficit from 1,4 billion m3 in 2003 to approximately 2 billion m3 in the next 15 years. While in the past new inter basin water transfer projects were the rule, those responsible are now learning that the long distance water delivery projects only raise the expectations for more water from users. Only the awareness that providing more water capacity is creating more demands on water, by encouraging more use by agricultural and industrial interests, led Iranian water managers to radically rethink their water policy. This new approach was made public in October 2003 when Iran was the first country in the region to admit the claims of the Johannesburg Conference. This increased the willingness to introduce alongside the existing purely service oriented water provision approach, an overall inspection of water resources and a systematic resource management. The concept of integrated water resource management (IWRM) has been accepted by those responsible for water in the region as a necessary part of the process of change.
To realise the necessary changes the Iranian government opened the water management sector to competent international partners including for example, Dutch, Japanese, French and increasingly German business and institutions.
Due to the described critical situation the Ministry of Energy (with the ultimate responsibility for water in Iran) and the Esfahan water authority have great interest in installing IWRM for the Zayandeh Rud river basin. This interest in IWRM is also shared by many other central institutions such as the provincial government, the Esfahan environmental agency, and the water and sewage utilities of Esfahan.
According to the opinions of the central actors in Esfahan it is essential that the IWRM takes the following factors into account:
- The regional situation and involvement of social items
- The balancing of divergent interests
- The creation of conditions to improve the cooperation of various agencies
- Adaptability and openness to future options (constraints and development trends are not clear).
The Provincial Governor’s "Commission to protect the Zayandeh Rud" is in the opinion of the project team as well as of the central institutions in the catchment area, an appropriate initiator and agency of a successful IWRM process. This process has to be supported by an accompanying research and development project which was conceived.
Zayandeh rud dam constructed more than 350 years ago