Ekbatan Dam seen in the photo earlier this year
A lawmaker in Iran has expressed concern over the critical water situation, saying that “some dams have reached less than 37% of their capacity.”
Hadi Beiginejad, member of Iranian parliament's energy commission, told ISNA website in Tehran Thursday that the country is not in a good situation in terms of water resources, adding that even the claim that 37% of dams are full may not be true.
“Based on the research I did, some reservoirs for some dams are much less than 37%,” he underlined.
On the other hand, according to latest official statistics of Iran Water Resources Management Company, two important water supply dams, namely Lar in Tehran and Ekbatan in the western city of Hamedan, have only two percent reserves.
The company also reported that among the important dams that supply drinking water, 11 have a reserve rate below 20% of their capacity.
According to the same statistics, the total water reserves of the country's dams are about 18 billion cubic meters, and on average, about 63% of the country's dam reservoirs are empty.
In the capital, however, the situation is worse and Tehran's dams with 279 million cubic meters of reserves are experiencing an unprecedented shortage in the past fifty years.
Earlier, Alireza Almasondi, Vice President of Water Resources Management Company, said 84 cities in Iran are struggling with water crisis.
Many years of drought and decades of mismanagement have led to chronic water shortages in most parts of Iran.