Water Crisis and Natural Resources; A Conversation Between Environmental Activist Mohammad Darvish and Ataullah Ebrahimi, Director of the Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Research Institute

An introduction to the problems of natural resource

Darwish: One of the most important problems we now face is in the country's natural resources, natural resources can be the cornerstone of a country's stability, and if not properly managed, if not properly paid, it could be the cause of the collapse of the land, today Dr. Ebrahimi, the head of the Institute of Soil and Watershed Management.

For years, you and I have been in this area of ​​about two billion tonnes a year for soil erosion, your device has done some detailed research in this area and has updated this number. Explain this number about this number. 

Ebrahimi: In the past few years, as you mentioned, according to the mission and task of the Research Institute of Soil Protection and Watershed Management, research has been conducted in the field of soil evaluation, in addition to models or methods that may probably be closely estimated. 

Darwish: about two and a half billion tons 

Ebrahimi: More than two billion has been met, but I should mention this in the central region of our country because there is no mainstream and our desert region has not yet been performed in Zagros, Alborz and the southern regions of the country.

Darwish: Your focus was blue erosion

Ebrahimi: Both the water and the evaluation that we put together behind the soil bonds we put together to reach this number.

Focus on evaluation methods

Darwish: You believe that the number of 4 tons is misfortune. 

Ebrahimi: Unfortunately, we are one of the countries where the ratio of soil to soil erosion is higher.  We cannot consider the same number for all parts of the country.  As you know in the Zagros area, conditions are completely different from Alborz. Air masses, soil erosion, the main soil beds in which the soil bed is formed.  Marnses are extremely vulnerable, have high soil erosion, along with soils that have evolved in the lime bed may be less eroded. 

Comparison of soil erosion in different areas

Darwish: Do the mountainous areas generally have more erosion rates or plain areas? 

Ebrahimi: In the plains, sedimentation usually occurs in Sardasht and mountainous areas of soil erosion, so most of the mountainous and Sardasht areas are deposited in the plain areas where the fertile agricultural soils today are our country's nutritional soil are mainly due to upstream soil erosion.  The point is that unfortunately in our country, the ratio of soil to the soil erosion that occurs, the 16.2 tonnes I mentioned in other countries because of the high humidity and humid climate they are aware of our country in the arid region and the average rainfall is one -third of the global average, but the soil rate is low in our country. 

The effect of erosion on agriculture

Darwish: In the National Food Security Document, we are foreseen or obliged to reduce soil erosion rates to 13 tons per hectare by Horizon 1411.

Ebrahimi: You raised a complicated question, as you know 

Darwish: Suppose you are a zero -to -hundred execution, or is it better to say what should we do to reduce the soil erosion rate?  What suggestions would you make if you were in charge

Ebrahimi: This is completely possible, meaning that it is possible to achieve 13 tons if we change our behavior with soil, which will include conservation agriculture in the agricultural sector.

Darwish: That is, to reduce the rainfall 

Ebrahimi: It does not mean that we go first to decrease the level of rainfall, when we walk in the west of the country, from any of the Western friends we pass, we see crops that do not have the capacity and potential of dryland cultivation, the average cost of worker is not high, it is high risk, such as this year's drought. 

I am a farmer, and I have felt this completely, many of our dryers did not harvest this year, though the main reason was that our country's last 232 mm was reduced by half, ie about 100 mm average of our country declined this year compared to the long -term average, another part of the same soil erosion.  Soil erosion levels increase sharply, so we need to make changes to the land use process. One of them can be conservation agriculture. 

Darwish: The earth is not naked 

Ebrahimi: The land is not naked. The soil protection coverage will remain stable instead of plowing every year and eroding every year. To make sustainable cultivation. 

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The need for change in agricultural procedures

Darwish: A problem of the type of tractors that farmers have that plow is hard to the slope direction 

Ebrahimi: The technical engineering department should think about this, a pattern was implemented several years ago and it was a slope breakdown in the form of the Trusts, the meters we can make the soil more stable, we can break the slope to increase the sustainability of the soil.  For example, in Bostanabad, this pattern exists and such patterns can be used.  Or I have traditionally observed in other parts of the country that farmers have already had this knowledge and technology in order for the plowing to the slope, and the ground rocks are perpendicular to the slope, and the soil that is eroded comes behind them. The slope breaks down.

Darwish: So one is a conservation agriculture, what other measures should be made to reach 13 tons?

Ebrahimi: We need to identify critical areas When we want to take action on the land on the field. First, we need to know what parts of the hotstops or hot spots that produce the most erosion are fortunately the Watershed Research Institute has done so.

Darwish: to the public. 

Ebrahimi: On the site of the Institute of Soil and Watershed Management, the final icon are subject maps can receive these maps.  The implementation section, which is the main trustee, and along with the people who are all duty to do, we are required to know where the Hot Stops are and put most of our energy on them to reduce erosion. 

Darwish: Is there other things besides these two other things?

Ebrahimi: One of the things I need to point out here is a very simple but very effective job that it may seem simple in mountainous areas if the grazing of the livestock occurs early, but one of the most effective in the natural resources of the activities that can be done to protect soil is to prevent management of why management is. 

Darwish: at the same time 

Ebrahimi: At the same time, the beginning and the end of the grazing, the severity of the trap, the duration of the trap is decisive to increase the stability of the land, it is natural when the vegetation reaches its minimum, which means the start of growth, and through the grazing of the livestock, we have a lot of soil protection at the end of the season.  There is no standard nationwide for ecological regions, if we define and observe soil stability and reduce the severe soil erosion rate.  One of the most effective and perhaps priority is why we can do management.  In the area of ​​natural resources, you know better than I know that the first principle of natural resource management is one of the main ways of protecting the management of grazing and in places of delayed and resting periodic grazing that can be very effective.

Forecasting water

Darwish: Another goal in the Food Security Document emphasized to reduce the horizon of 1411 to 105 billion cubic meters, as optimistic they say that now is 150 billion budget. Is it possible to reduce 45 billion cubic meters with watershed operations with your research institute. 

Ebrahimi: The point to borrow from the first part of our conversation is to pay attention to the relationship between water and soil, if we want to solve the water problem before we have to solve the soil problem, or at the same time solve the two, when it comes to water, we have to consider two scales, one of the other water resources, or the other is water resources.  We have put our resources on supply management. This is the main point to supply water from groundwater aquifers, desalination from the Persian Gulf, other sources, and so on;  But we have dealt with a very low issue that consumption management is located in a dry and semi -arid region of our country. The average rainfall of our country is one -third of the global average and we must adapt ourselves to these conditions.

  In your introduction you mentioned that many of the civilizations are formed with water and many civilizations have been failed and collapsed, at an important historical point, we need to change policies, consumption management as a principle must be considered, and a large part of the cost should be considered.

The second point is the production of water resources, the average water supply of our country is about 400 billion cubic meters, which has been reduced to 380 in recent years, as it has been halved this year, it is certain that if we have a reservoir, the outlet valve is not balanced compared to the inlet valve and we will have overwhelming water loss.  This is how the story is and we need to close the milk so that we can restore the tank to its original state.  Usually groundwater is the title of strategic resources. We must use these resources for a year like this year when conditions are unstable.

Capacity of the aquifers

Darwish: The point you mentioned is one of the questions and ambiguities is how much coarse -grained alluviums, aquifers have the capacity to accumulate 150 to 350 billion?  How much water can accumulate?  How much have we consumed?

Ebrahimi: Estimates in our country of 609 plains that exist about 500 billion cubic meters in coarse -grained aquifers that you mentioned is the capacity of water resources, which has officially stated that we have said 160 billion cubic meters of this, we were more than the future generations.  423 Plains are either forbidden or critical or forbidden by critical, and we must reconsider our policies in the amount of water resources and water productivity.

Disagreement

Darwish: Do you mostly agree with the research of Shiraz University, when Abbas Keshavarz confirmed that Natrazi is at least 350 billion cubic meters, even 250 billion of Tehran University Presidents optimistic? 

Ebrahimi: Not a detailed research in this area cannot be a precise number that when a scientific set wants to be scientific support, there is an information vacuum in this area and we need to do a closer look at this.

Darwish: Once upon a time there is ten percent of the disagreement, but the Ministry of Energy as a water resources management company says it is $ 150 billion and sectors at the Ministry of Agriculture or the reputable university say there is a huge difference in the National Food Security Document.

Ebrahimi: Because this is the basis of this remote judgment, we cannot say with confidence which number is true, but evidence says we are much more than 160 billion cubic meters of the Ministry of Energy. 

Darwish: Is there a research on your respective device to determine this number?

Ebrahimi: It is a case in Qazvin plain or Hamedan plain, which is one of the high -production plains, although it comprises about one percent of the country, but 4 % of agricultural production is from this plain, half of the groundwater resources in this plain is harvested, if we do not decrease in this plain.  We will not have a water farming in Qazvin or Hamedan plain, so the need to reconsider the method of harvesting and the efficiency of water resources we consume, I am happy that all people have been involved with this pattern of cultivation over the past two or three years, and hopefully someday we will have a serious revision of groundwater resources.

Darwish: We have to go through the hope of what the relevant apparatus or the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad has to get to this point. 

Ebrahimi: Over the past few years, good resources have been done for the efficiency of water resources and the implementation of modern irrigation systems, which was a good thing, but we have forgotten one point when the new irrigation systems were implemented, which means that in the same area we used to keep agriculture, we have to increase the economic income and increase water productivity.  Acknowledge that serious revision must be made.

Problems caused by changing irrigation methods in Lake Urmia

Darwish: Billions of dollars spent on the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad in Lake Urmia Watershed the irrigation of irrigation, but the status of the area increased because agriculture that had 5 hours of water could cultivate the garden for two hours. 

Ebrahimi: One of the symbols we did to implement new irrigation systems but prioritized development instead of increasing productivity is exactly the Lake Urmia that has thrown the lake to this day, but there is another case called water resources production, and if we can do it.  Stop the speed of harvest, and then what is stated in the Law on Increasing Productivity of Article 27 to reduce the negative water resources balance annually. 

Investigating the performance of watershed management

Darwish: You mentioned the subtle points that there is a problem with pressure irrigation that not only did not solve the problem of aquifer but also exacerbated and reinforced the subsidence.  Has the hugs help you accept this?

Ebrahimi: Exactly, the solution is comprehensive watershed management or water management on the field

Darwish: You did this in any

Ebrahimi: In our interpretation of our friends at the Ministry of Water Management on the scale of the field, and in our words, the comprehensive watershed management is a short but very decisive difference in these two views that when we talk about water management on the scale of the field, we only see water management, but we have to do so, but we have to see the comprehensive water management of the water.  Did it?  Who can manage this exploitation and change the way of productivity?  He is still human, the one who has created such conditions is the one that must be aware of his behavior with the land and shift, and people will certainly play a very decisive role in this, what we have been unaware of the management of consumption, nor the comprehensive watershed view.  In this comprehensive view of the watershed, all environmental abusers must be respected. The farmer must be seen, and the rights and investments he has made, the rangelands and forests of upstream forests are the basis for the amount of riverfront and sustainability of the river. 

A citizen who consumes a lot of water. He is also a duty, just we should not see the farmer, drinking, industry, services and other sectors here to reduce consumption to overcome this crisis. 

Darwish: I would like to see more in your area of ​​responsibility what arrangements have been seen or you want to see the sovereignty to get closer to these goals or aspirations of the document in Horizon 1411.  However, the document was announced in July 1402 by President Ibrahim Raisi now more than two years since the document, and it seems that we have not only moved to the document, but the quality and quantity of the numbers have been added. 

Ebrahimi: It seems that we need another law to complement this law or this Supreme Council resolution, which is now a bill in the Cabinet and in parliament as a comprehensive watershed management bill, if we do not see the elements of this ecosystem, so the development of the ecosystem will be the development of the ecosystem. 

Darwish: A draft bill written 

Ebrahimi: Yes, there is a cabinet, as far as I know we were involved in the Infrastructure Commission, and almost the infrastructure commission of paragraph 3, if I was not mistaken, would have been a detailed dispute and reviewed the decision of the commission. 

Criticism of watershed structures

Darwish: One of the criticisms of watershed operations in the country is that watershed operations have been central to structural syndrome, the same reservoir dams with smaller dimensions and itself enhances the evaporation process and cause the wetlands to be downstream and how much do you accept this criticism?

Ebrahimi: When we speak of watershed operations in general, the philosophy of comprehensive watershed management is likely to increase ecological balance, the main purpose and purpose of watershed activities is to increase the sustainability of the land to control soil erosion.  We have done the right watershed that we have to reflect on. 

We must admit that we have confused the watershed management approach with the structural management of the watershed when it comes to watershed management, which I have said will be an important part of the problem solving.

Darwish: Choosing the right species, whether the weed coefficient is reduced, or that agriculture is protective, is part of the watershed operation, but it seems that perhaps because we can attract the budget, the trustee, the natural resources and watershed agency, has been more involved in the structural sector and has been involved in structural syndrome.

Ebrahimi: In general, the funds dedicated to the watershed area, compared to other other methods, such as the dam, which have been carried out over the past few years, perhaps the total amount of credits that have been spent for a few years from the National Fund's credits with the supreme leader's permission for the watershed.  They are not comparable at all, but that we have really spent the same amount correctly.  It was much better to work on public participation as the most important element for comprehensive watershed management, and we have a neglect of this, perhaps part of the reason was that structural work is more decision makers.

Darwish: In the dam construction, it is also stated that they were constructed as a dam every forty days.

Ebrahimi: Why did this happen?  The lack of sovereignty is a comprehensive management view. We saw part of the field, for example, we wanted to sustain and develop agriculture. We were unaware of the downstream areas. 

Darwish: You have more than two decades of experience, none of these watershed areas have been defensible. 

Ebrahimi: There was a lot of example, for example, a valuable work done with the participation of the people, we have a lot of experience in this field, now our hand for the experiences we can provide as a model. 

Darwish: Hubbl River before the Nimrod Dam construction, 

Ebrahimi: Yes, it has disrupted the ecosystem dam.  When you talk about the river, it includes the southern Alborz to Garmsar.  Really good experiences have been done very good collaborative work in the Hubbler River, which could be a good and successful example.  Experiences such as carbon drawing programs that have been done on people's livelihoods and increased vegetation as the most important element of water and soil protection.  Implementation of pattern projects in the form of couples and watershed patterns in the provinces levels have had good experiences.  Unfortunately, this is a fact that watershed principles may not have been adhered to somewhere.  Watershed Principles say first know the instability in the ecosystem If the jungle of the firefighter is not right. First, fix these. 

Consequences of exporting agricultural products

Darwish: If you look at the upstream logic of Iran, Iran is like a body that is bleeding with a shortage of blood.  Hamedan is exported to the United Arab Emirates.  Your job not only does not lead to a decline in rudeness, but it also helps to export virtual water, blood exports and collapse of this body.  Have you been able to use this lever that we should not be a tool of collapse or should it be legal upstream because there is no impression in this plain.  If the economy of the country is based on the conscience of water -based water, that is, we want to produce wealth from the water industry, your job cannot actually help the resilience return to the home, that is, a part of the puzzle that is effective when you put the rest of the puzzle. 

Ebrahimi: The point you said that policies must be convergence, to converge policies, we need to know at what price we consume or export or export value is a part of the macro policies that must be amended.

Darwish: This is in your demands, for example, you have written a letter to the Minister that should happen 

Ebrahimi: We can say that forgiveness in the food security document mentioned when it comes to agricultural water consumption from about 80 and a small billion cubic meters per year to 51 billion cubic meters. 

Darwish: I haven't done the Ministry of Jihad for the past two years.

Ebrahimi: As far as I know, we are not directly involved in the pattern of cultivation and ask friends who have more direct responsibility, but as far as I know, good things have been done now, such as provincial task, even cutting at the city level, which has to be changed to reduce the amount of water consumption.  But let me point to the sheriff's issue. One part of these policies in the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad is a part of the Ministry of Energy, for example, the implementation of smart control systems in a large plain, if a part is done, that one who does not have the system does not have the system almost freely exploits common resources.  You must have heard the disaster theory of the use of shared resources. This is now in many cases in our country that has really created a serious challenge. It is natural to be used in rangelands in common, over -exploited, in groundwater that is common resources, if we do not, such as other intelligent mentors.  So we should consider the two sections in macro policymaking the same part you mentioned. We do not inject blood on one side of the body. 

Darwish: We have to rest to the body

Ebrahimi: Groundwater resources have faced such a challenge.  In macro policies, there are legal duties that some may not comply with the law or harvest in common resources. 

Concerns about the dissolution of the Natural Resources Organization

Darwish: The issue of the dissolution of the Natural Resources Organization in the country was raised that many enthusiasts shocked and upset, we did not expect an environmental claim in a government where his president tweeted before the presidency, which would never take any action in my government.  14,000 personnel have not signed the campaign to oppose the dissolution of the Natural Resources Organization. Is it a reason why the 120 -year performance of the Natural Resources Organization is constantly withdrawn, and the expediency of the organization was perhaps the most important of the chiefs, and the expediency of the environment.  Not.  What do you think about this resolution?  What is the landscape?  Is it possible to return? 

Ebrahimi: You talked about a resolution that there was a lot of criticism, these criticisms were.  But I would like to point out two of the few points in the criticism that the whole of the Ministry of Agriculture is damaged by this decree, one being that the entire Ministry of Agriculture Jihad as a ministry of security has been derived from a ministry of security, when it is a major policy making.  The title of someone I have worked on in the field of research, both in the academic and academic sector, and the Ministry of Jihad's duties, I see this concern and mistake in decision making, from this point of view, I request an appeal in this decree. 

The policy is to make it difficult for policymaking, which is the most important task of the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources in the macro -planning dimension, which is one of the key elements of water and soil and subsidence and so on, how should the National Organization fail?  How should we account for if the National Organization fails to make a policy that is its main task?  Unless you can transfer a policy to another organization in one organization and then request an accountability from that organization.  Organizational philosophy, such as the Natural Resources Organization, which is 70 % of the duties of sovereignty, is the sovereignty.

Darwish: Isn't it a paradox and conflict of interest to the agricultural sector?

Ebrahimi: It was controversial over the past few years one of the serious criticisms of why the consumer sector of the natural resources sector is with the Tuli Grass or trustee and sovereignty. It would be a threat to it. This issue has not yet been resolved. 

Darwish: You look at the history of natural resources. The most dreamy period is when the Ministry of Natural Resources existed in the second half of the 1940s when Nasser Golsrakhi was the Minister of Natural Resources, and was dissolved with an amazing irregularity of natural resources and we are still not short.  I have always seen that activists in this field have called for the authority of the Natural Resources Organization and now we are seeing the dissolution of the Natural Resources Organization.

Ebrahimi: This decision was made if we were really sympathetic to our country and our system, it was unlikely to know that this decision has been consciously made. 

Conclusion 

Darwish: Final Tip

Ebrahimi: We are all duty to work together to sustain our land, and to work together to sustain our land.  Two or three days in the northwest of the country in the three provinces of Kurdistan, West and East Azerbaijan, the platform for public participation for natural resources and the environment is high.  I advise the authorities to use the capacity of Article 29 of the Law on Permanent Law on Watershed Management and Natural Resources. This is a unique capacity showing where the people are really aware of environmental issues that people are really aware of the people, but as a concern.  Forests have lost their lives to participate in the conservation of natural resources, watershed and environmental protection, to appreciate ourselves and use this capacity better than ever before to overcome the unstable challenge in our natural ecosystem and the environment of our lives.

Darwish: The most important thing that Dr. Ebrahimi has pointed out if we want to implement the National Food Security Document, we should go along with the implementation of comprehensive watershed management so that we can actually move toward the economy by reducing loading and using people's capacity so that we are not water -based and keep dear Iran. 

Full file of Abdi Media's conversation with Atalullah Ebrahimi, head of the Institute of Soil and Watershed Management