High Time to Pull the Plug on Dam Constructions

The mind boggles when officials take turns in proudly announcing that plans are underway to complete 120 dams across the country, of which 43 “must” be ready by 2022. Of the 172 dams in Iran close to 96 are running out of water.

Due to the systemic decline in rainfall, especially in the central and southern regions, more than half (54%) the dams, except for those in Kermanshah Province, are less than 40% full.

Each of the 120 incomplete dams needs minimum $50 million to be up and running. Given that average annual precipitation (200 millimeters) declined by 50% during the last decade, academia, environmentalists and water experts ask one simple question: Why do officials insist on building more dams when they know very well that there is no water to store.

It is obvious that those in charge in Tehran know that the rate at which dams are built in the world has plunged from almost 1,000 a year in the mid-1970s to about 250 in the early 2000s.

Moreover, the World Commission on Dams has found out that dams at best have been marginally viable in economic terms. The average cost overrun of dams is 56. Translation: when a dam is predicted to cost $1 billion, it ends up costing $1.56 billion. In many cases, the burden of uneconomic dams falls on the shoulders of the people of that country while the project contractors walk away with a tidy profit and another project to add to their portfolio. 

Nonetheless, some officials, including Mohammad Hajrasouliha, chief executive of Iran’s Water Resources Management Company (a subsidiary of the Energy Ministry) justify their pro-dam policy and say that the 43 dams that should become operational at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion in the next three years are crucial for potable water supply.

***Alternatives

Authorities seem to be oblivious of the fact that building dams is not the only way to meet rising demand, especially when it is said that 700 million cubic meters of water is wasted in the country every year. Thus, no matter how many dams are built, a huge amount of water will be wasted unless dilapidated underground piping systems in cities and towns are either repaired or replaced.

Moreover, helping farmers upgrade their outdated irrigation systems in the deprived areas, taking advantage of treated sewage, gray-water, storm-water for non-potable purposes such as farming, recharging underground water sources during a wet year or a season (often winter) when water is available as well as promoting judicious consumption patterns are among alternatives that have been ignored and not attracted half the attention as dam building.

Farming and growing crops generally is wasteful, especially in the poorer regions. Experts say the cheapest and most effective way of providing more water to cities and small towns is to increase and augment water efficiency it he key agro sector. Alleviating seepage and waste in the urban water supply networks must also top the priority list.

Problems of dams namely ecological disruption and seepage and evaporation notwithstanding, in Iran’s rent-based economy dam construction is still profitable because such projects are not necessarily undertaken by one or two contractors. The norm is that more than 10 contractors are involved as they keep changing and work gets delayed.

According to Paris-based International Commission on Large Dams, an international non-governmental organization dedicated to the sharing of professional information and knowledge of the design and construction, Iran is ranked second after Turkey in building dams. It merits mention that the average annual precipitation in the neighboring country at 600 millimeters is three times of Iran.

The bottom line is that dams, though crucial sources of water and electricity, are not the optimal solution to alleviate Iran’s water crisis under the present conditions.

True, it is not possible to eliminate all dams. But concerted efforts must be made to pull the plug on dam constructions. Failing to do so will indeed create dangerous illusions of water abundance and make a bad situation worse.

Hamid Mollazadeh

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