Groundwater reserves in the country are declining by 5 billion cubic meters annually

“According to the information base of the Environmental Protection Organization,”Ali Moridi » Referring to the designation of World Water Day (March 22, coinciding with the 2nd of Farvardin) in 2022 as “Groundwater – Revealing the Unseen”, he said: The volume of fresh groundwater resources on Earth is about 10 billion cubic kilometers. This volume has accumulated in the basement for centuries or millennia, but most of these resources are not related to the water cycle and its renewable processes.
He added: “About a quarter of renewable water resources are related to groundwater resources, which is estimated at about 10,000 cubic kilometers per year.” 20% of this figure is due to direct infiltration of rainfall and 80% is due to infiltration of surface water flows.
Regarding the situation of rainfall in Iran, the Director General of the Office of Environmental Protection and Management of Soil and Water said: “Iran, with an area of ​​approximately one million 648 thousand square kilometers, has an average rainfall of 243 mm per year.” This amount is approximately equal to one third of the average rainfall in the world, and thus Iran is one of the driest countries in the world.
Muridi Babian clarified that different figures have been reported for estimating the volume of renewable water in the country: in the usual reports of the Ministry of Energy, 130 billion cubic meters are mentioned, but according to the droughts of recent years, this figure is up to 120 billion cubic meters.
He added: the total volume of rainfall in the country is 400 billion cubic meters per year, of which 285 billion cubic meters (up to 70%) is evaporated. In the range of announced figures and with expert judgment, the volume of renewable water in the country can be considered about 115 billion cubic meters. Of this amount, 25 billion cubic meters permeate per year and the remaining 90 billion cubic meters flow as surface runoff in the country’s rivers.
According to the Director General of the Office for Environmental Protection and Management of Soil and Water, Iran is on the verge of water stress with a per capita renewable water of nearly 1,200 cubic meters per person, like many Middle Eastern countries.
Moridi continued: during the last 50 years, 110 billion cubic meters of groundwater resources have been used illegally and 40 billion cubic meters of overdraft has been done in the last 8 years. In fact, an average annual decrease of 5 billion cubic meters of groundwater reserves is evident in the country.
He pointed out that there is an inverse relationship between the share of agriculture in water consumption and the level of development and income of countries. In most high-income developed countries, the share of agriculture is below 50% and the share of industry is generally more than 40%. Conversely, in low-income countries, the share of industry and agriculture is on average 2% and 90%, respectively. In most countries in the Middle East and North Africa, more than 70% of water in the agricultural sector is consumed, and unfortunately this figure is more than 90% in Iran.

Overdraft from aquifers in some parts of the world has caused a sharp drop in groundwater levels and even the depletion of these resources. Also, these resources are not usable due to pollution. The main sources of pollution are: infiltration of municipal wastewater, pesticides and chemical fertilizers used in agricultural lands, industrial wastewater and mines. These pollutions are likely to be more catastrophic than the decline in natural water quality, which is often exacerbated by poor aquifer management.

According to him, the deterioration of water quality of aquifers of natural origin includes the entry of saline water into coastal aquifers and contamination with toxic elements in aquifers or in adjacent geological layers such as arsenic, fluoride and radioactive isotopes.
He added: “Groundwater quality is vulnerable to water and land mismanagement, wastewater disposal methods and accidental waste and pollution.” Also in the plains, due to the fact that the upper layers or layers have lighter and sweeter water, over-exploitation causes the freshwater layers to be drained and the lower layers, which have more salts, to be removed. Due to the velocity, the movement of groundwater is usually slow, the movement of pollution and its spread is slow. After the contamination of these tanks, even if the source of contamination is not active, it takes a long time and a lot of money to achieve better quality conditions.
Muridi cited land subsidence, reduced discharge and life of existing wells, degraded ecosystem services, and increased exploitation disputes during the dry season as other consequences of improper water abstraction from aquifers.
The Director General of the Office of Environmental Protection and Management of Soil and Water, referring to the ways out of the current situation, emphasized on changing the macro structure of water resources management and said: looking at the country’s water resources as an intergenerational capital, Other factors and elements of the structure such as processes and rules and policies of general and executive and horizontal and vertical communication at different levels of government need to be seriously examined and reviewed. In this case, as in the case of planning, we are faced with different and contradictory aspects that have seriously damaged the coherence and coherence of the overall structure.
Muridi stated: Authority in the water governance system is achieved based on the establishment of a structure that provides a balanced form of hierarchy, market and business system and mechanisms for creating agreement and consensus between stakeholders and effective factors.

When the government fails to do well in the area of ​​governance, the relationship between actors (government, private sector, and social and non-governmental institutions) and the space for activities should not only facilitate or facilitate the voluntary entry of other actors and actors so that it is suspended. Or fail to reach the end, but also the necessary measures must be provided for learning and capacity development. Governance thus finds actors other than the state that need to redefine maps and redistribute areas of authority and responsibilities and how they relate to each other.

The Director General of the Office of Environmental Protection and Management of Soil and Water stressed the need to take operational measures to protect groundwater, said: The process will have very severe environmental, economic and social consequences for the country.

The director general of the Office of Environmental Protection and Management of Soil and Water said: “Therefore, it is necessary for the government to intervene in proportion to the consequences of encroaching on water, such as Anfal and public wealth, based on non-expert interventions and decisions in recent years.”
He added: “Among the necessary measures in the field of groundwater management, limiting water abstraction from permitted wells (for adaptation to climate change), blocking unauthorized wells, changing the allocation of agricultural wells and allocating treated effluent to farmers for irrigation, prioritizing forbidden plains and To implement treatment programs and artificial nutrition of aquifers and to establish water supply organizations for the exploiters of groundwater resources and to help set up local water markets and realize water prices. It is also important to change the cultivation pattern and establish a sustainable agricultural system.