Iran is suffering water shortages, and one researcher says there are too many dams. How does that work?
The gravity of the situation has become increasingly apparent as water shutoffs spread across Iran, particularly in Tehran, amid growing reports of what residents describe as silent rationing, claims that officials have denied, attributing the disruptions to mere pressure drops in the system…
Tehran’s water utility has announced that current reserves in the capital’s main dams have plummeted to their lowest levels in a century…Academic researcher Reza Talebi has noted that Iran’s aggressive expansion of dam construction has worsened the country’s water crisis instead of alleviating it. Between 2012 and 2018, the number of dams in Iran more than doubled, from 316 to 647, according to Talebi, and many were erected without proper environmental evaluations and often driven by political or military agendas…
Meanwhile, over the past 20 years, groundwater levels in Tehran have fallen by 12 meters, contributing to land subsidence and threatening the stability of urban infrastructure. Major infrastructure issues also led to a preventable loss of water, with estimates of up to around 25% of Tehran’s water lost through mismanagement of facilities.
Agreed. Seems unlikely. But there are serious discussions about it. Lake Powell (Glen Canyon Reservoir) is now far below capacity at just 32%. The continuing drought means it will likely go lower. In February, 2023 it was at 22% of capacity. A little lower than that and the hydropower generation will stop.
There is talk that the river can’t provide enough water for both Lake Powell and Lake Mead and Powell might have to be sacrificed. But working out a deal between Upper and Lower Basin states seems an intractable problem.
Evaporation is estimated to account for around 70 inches of water loss annually, while bank storage (water seeping into the surrounding rock formations) is estimated to be over 14.8 billion cubic meters. These losses, combined, can exceed 1 million acre-feet per year.
[Note: those figures come from the Glen Canyon Institute which is dedicated to returning a free-flowing Colorado River to Glen Canyon, so maybe disputed by others]
These losses represent a significant reduction in the usable water supply of the Colorado River system.
Studies have suggested that storing more water in Lake Mead (which has lower evaporative losses) rather than Lake Powell could save a substantial amount of water annually.
The Glen Canyon Institute estimates that draining Lake Powell could save between 600,000 and 1 million acre-feet of water annually,
Lake Powell Warning Over Water Levels Issued for 2026
This would be a very challenging undertaking. Having worked on Lake Powell for a few years I have seen how the desert winds can generate large waves on the Lake’s surface. Also, one of the powerful incentives for keeping the Lake is its popularity as a recreational area. Solar panels and boats would not be compatible.
When full, Lake Powell has a surface area of 252 square miles or 161,390 acres.
The lake has numerous small, narrow arms that are often deeply shaded.
But it does pay to think outside the box.
Unless the long term drought conditions abate, there will be serious problems for the many users of Colorado River water.
“We are forced to cut off water supply to citizens on some evenings so that reservoirs can refill,” Energy Minister Abbas Alibadi said on state television on Saturday…
President Masoud Pezehkian, in an address broadcast on Friday, warned that if there is no rain by December, Tehran’s roughly 10 million inhabitants may be forced to evacuate to other parts of the country…
Very true. “Encounters with the Arch Druid (aka David Brower)” by John McPhee is a pretty good book. It explains part of the story for Glen Canyon. It was either Glen Canyon or the Confluence of the Green and Yampa in Dinosaur National Monument. No one really knew much about Glen Canyon, so it was sacrificed for the Yampa. A poor choice. But Floyd Dominy and the USBR were a little manic about dam building. 7 dams or so planned for the Grand Canyon . . . . . .
Dominy was a very powerful BuRec director and he never met a dam he didn’t love.
In 1980, as part of a college course I was taking, I interviewed the local Bureau of Reclamation supervisor in Durango, Colorado. At the time there were several dams proposed for southwestern Colorado, one on Dolores, one on the San Miguel, and a pumped storage project on the Animas.
The local BuRec supervisor told me without equivocation that none of those proposals could pass muster on a cost/benefit ratio basis.
Both the Animas project and McPhee Dam on the Dolores got built. The local boosters with their allies in Congress were relentless in pursuing these. McPhee Dam mainly accomplished the conversion of dryland bean and wheat farming into water intensive alfalfa growing. Probably good for local farmers, but heavily subsidized by the taxpayers and using water than would probably have been better utilized further downstream in the Colorado River Basin.
Then there is the problem of increased salinity in the Colorado River Basin region. The government provided cheap water on cheap land that was used for such things as growing cotton in Arizona. Then later, they bought out those farmers in order to reduce the increase in salinity that those farming practices had created.
Even if the upper basin states, lower basin states, and tribal nations could come to an agreement, groundwater will not be part of the renegotiated Colorado River Pact. This is a big problem.
The deadline passed yesterday and was extended. There’s a real possibility that Dougie B will become The Water Master! God help us.
