Anthropogenic depletion of Iran’s aquifers
Roohollah Noori, Mohsen Maghrebi, Ali Mirchi, Qiuhong Tang, Rabin Bhattarai, Mojtaba Sadegh, Mojtaba Noury, Ali Torabi Haghighi, Bjørn Kløve, Kaveh Madani
Abstract
/y of nonrenewable water caused groundwater tables to decline 10 to 100 cm/y in different regions, averaging 49 cm/y across the country. This caused elevated annual average electrical conductivity (EC) of groundwater in vast arid/semiarid areas of central and eastern Iran (16 out of 30 subbasins), indicating "very high salinity hazard" for irrigation water. The annual average EC values were generally lower in the wetter northern and western regions, where groundwater EC improvements were detected in rare cases. Our results based on high-resolution groundwater measurements reveal alarming water security threats associated with declining fresh groundwater quantity and quality due to many years of unsustainable use. Our analysis offers insights into the environmental implications and limitations of water-intensive development plans that other water-scarce countries might adopt.