Baku, Azerbaijan, July 7
By Emil Ilgar – Trend:
The water crisis issue in Iran has been brought up to the Supreme National Security Council, Rahim Meydani, deputy of Energy Ministry told Tasnim.
He added that the water crisis has become a national security issue.
Statistics show that over the past two decades, precipitation in Iran has decreased by 10 percent, Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian said earlier.
Over the same period, the average temperature in Iran increased 1.5 degrees Celsius and 25 billion cubic meter of water resources evaporated, he added, Mehr news agency reported February 27.
“The volume of running water has decreased by 20 percent and the feed that goes into groundwater is down by 15 percent.”
According to the minister, the snow line – the minimum altitude where snow piles up in mountains – has increased by 200 meters, and the melting of snow has shifted to one month sooner than before.
Hamid Chitchian also said that in some areas in Iran the depth of wells has reached 500 meters in places where it used to be only 20 meters two decades ago.