February 21-2014
Rainfall in the current Persian year is the lowest in almost half a century and eight major cities in the country will face serious water shortages as a result, the Energy Ministry said
Sattar Mahmudi, the deputy minister of energy, said recent reports of heavy rain and snow can be misleading as this year, with 11 months of precipitation records so far in, is set to show the lowest precipitation since 1967-68, 46 years ago.
But the impact of that low precipitation will be worse than 46 years ago since the country’s population then was just 27 million, only a third of today’s 77 million.
Mahmudi said the problem is most acute in eight major cities: Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad, Qom, Ahvaz, Bandar Abbas and Abadan.
He offered no solution, merely calling for committees to be set up to figure out how to provide these cities with long-term, dependable sources of clean drinking water.