The report by the Research Center of the Parliament also provided changes in legislations on water section and the impact it would wield in underground water reservoir; “the current disturbing situation of underground water is far from being covert; the climatic condition and water resources poses serious limitations in using the meagre reservoirs; this would pose immediate threat for two third of the country’s vast area located in arid, semi-arid and desert regions, and would hit country’s few megacities and center of larger populations in central and east-central part, solely dependent on underground reservoirs for meeting their water requirements,” the report reads.
“The current situation in water sector is in the brink of crisis thank to unregulated and unlimited use of underground water by digging illegal wells and overuse by legally permitted wells, along with contribution of recent years of drought,” said the report.
“Exacerbated water levels and the water deficit in aquifers have pushed the number of alluvial plains where the water use through water wells is banned from only 47 plains in 1968 to 319 plains in 2014; water use efficiency below global average both in farm production and in transportation of water indicate clear damage in the recent decade, with a huge deficit of 110bn cubic meters in last 47 years, 95bn cubic meters of which is deficit incurred in recent decade,” the report grimly said.
“A second important issue,” the report admitted, “is that relates to drink water, with 63 per cent of the nation’s drink water being from underground reservoirs, with only 37 per cent provided by surface waters; in rural areas, however, it exceeds 80 per cent; the reservoir deficit brought about the possibility of provision of water in larger cities through water tanks; this is even now the case for over 6,000 villages,” the report read.
“The average down-drift in Tehran plains is 30-36 centimeters per annum in different regions, far more than the global average; the changes in quality of underground water as a result of reservoir depletion, creation of down-drifts in plains, and threatened public and wildlife in cities and villages are too obvious,” the report laments, however, it does not bring good news; “the number of plains with empty underground reservoirs is in rise due to ever-increasing and frantic overuse of water.”
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