Over-exposed communities face yet another drought

Iran was facing its third consecutive year of drought, the effect of which was likely to be “exponential”, as many communities, particularly in rural areas, had not yet recovered from the devastation of last year, the United Nations resident coordinator in Iran, Francesco Bastagli, told IRIN on Wednesday. With water levels in most rivers reportedly down by 45 percent from last year, according to Bastagli, the expectation is one of widespread water shortages and losses to agriculture, livestock and the country’s wildlife.

The warning follows an announcement last week by Rasul Zargar, deputy minister of energy for water resources, who predicted a water crisis for 12 of the country’s 28 provinces. Zargar also said the water crisis would be felt in urban areas, including parts of the capital, Tehran, where reserves in the city’s main sources of potable water were only half the levels available at the same time last year.

The UN coordinator’s office maintains that although the drought looks set to affect fewer regions, its impact this year will be “far greater in communities which have not recovered from the losses of the two previous years”.

Bastagli told IRIN that all the indicators were a “serious cause for concern”. He added, however, that Iran was not in the same league as Afghanistan in terms of the devastation from drought. “There is an infrastructure here, capabilities and resources are more solid. However, the drought is taxing very heavily on Iran’s agriculture system, which is not strong and is currently overexposed,” he said.
A clear sense of the real impact of another drought had not yet been established, Bastagli noted; however, a further assessment was to be conducted on 13 May. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) last week sent a mission to Iran to establish an early-warning system for drought mitigation, which it termed of “extremely high importance”.

“Recurring droughts are a harsh reality in this part of the world, where 13 of the past 20 years have been drought years. Our priority is to support the government’s efforts in finding long-term solutions, including clearly defined strategies for the conservation and use of the nation’s water resources,” Bastagli said.
Later this year, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Iran will host a meeting of governmental and UN experts from Afghanistan, India, Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan to promote cross-border cooperation and to identify practical measures for drought management.

The drought in Iran last year affected 18 of the country’s 28 provinces, and 60 percent of the rural population. More than 12 million people living in urban and rural areas experienced a shortage of potable water. Crops covering 8.4 million hectares of orchards and farms were lost. The UN helped mobilise some US $3.2 million to support national drought mitigation efforts.