Nearly 600 lakes in Iran are dying, says Issa Kalantari, the former agriculture minister who chairs the committee trying to save Lake Urumiyeh.
Kalantari said: “We all share the blame for the way we have treated nature. Yet we are still looking for someone to put the burden on, without having a solid understanding of what has really caused the problem.”
Majlis Deputy Gholam-Reza Tajgardoun said the government is about to allocate some 10 trillion rials ($290 million) to develop drip and sprinkler irrigation systems across the country.
Such irrigation methods, which require much less water and are used around the world in arid zones, were identified years ago as a necessity in Iran, but little has been done so far to promote them. Instead, the most common method used is to flood fields, which results in most of the irrigation water evaporating.
Emphasizing the need for speedy action, Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian said rainfall across the country has fallen 24 percent, though he didn’t make clear over what period that had happened.
He said, “If we would just use the reduced amount properly, there would be no problem.”
Chitchian said, “If we would follow the correct path with regard to water usage, we would not only overcome the water shortage crisis, but also would be able to boost our agriculture production up to 10-fold.”