January 03, 2017
Water has started flowing through the Khaju Bridge again, filling the parched riverbed and flowing through the city. It will run for 22 days before being closed down again. The gates were opened Sunday, January 22. So much of the river water has been diverted by farmers east of the city and by the water-guzzling Mobarekeh Steel Mill that the authorities closed the gates on the bridge several years ago so there would be enough water east of the bridge for agriculture and steel. The floodgates are opened periodically, including three times in the last 14 months—November 2015, February 2016 and now in January 2017. The Zayandeh Rud originates in the mountains of Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari province and runs through Esfahan and on eastward until it empties in the Gavkhouni Wetland, which isn’t all that wet anymore.
