Groundwater, which is in aquifers below the surface of the Earth, is one of the most important natural resources anywhere. Writes Khalil Khani
Groundwater is a major part of global water available to mankind, found underground between rocks or soil layers, accessible through wells or natural springs. Climate, land use, local geology, and water quality all affect the availability of groundwater resources.
Climate, land use, local geology, and water quality all affect the availability of groundwater resources. Groundwater, which is in aquifers below the surface of the Earth, is one of the most important natural resources anywhere.
Although 2/3 of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, less than 3% of it is fresh water. Pollutants in the world’s rivers, streams, and lakes render water undrinkable and harm local wildlife. Population growth has triggered overuse of freshwater, has also caused water shortages and dry up lakes, rivers, or streams before they reach the sea or downstream neighbors, and very often causing conflict.
Groundwater exists underground in saturated zones beneath the land surface. The upper surface of the saturated zone is called the water table.
Groundwater also supplies springs, and much of the water in ponds, marshland, swamps, streams, rivers, and bays. Although it is “out of sight,” however, critical that we must pay attention to it. Groundwater is part of the water cycle that man must pay significant attention to protecting and maintaining its quality and quantity.
Many subterranean aquifers have been around for centuries or even hundreds of millennia, nurturing trees and vegetation, permeating spaces and crevices in soil, sand, and rock, and networking with rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands.
Contrary to popular belief, groundwater does not form underground rivers. It fills the pores and fractures in underground materials such as sand, gravel, and other rock, much the same way that water fills a sponge. If groundwater flows naturally out of rock materials or if it can be removed by pumping, the rock materials build aquifers.
Groundwater moves slowly, typically at rates of 7-60 centimeters per day in an aquifer. As a result, water could remain in an aquifer for hundreds or thousands of years.
Overexploitation of water can lead to a series of serious problems. Extracting groundwater causes drawdown. This can impact delicate ecosystems and biodiversity. Groundwater feeds vegetation and replenishes intermittent streams that communities of fish and aquatic invertebrates depend on. Wet stream beds are also important sites of microorganism activity, carbon, and nutrient recycling. Lack of groundwater would cause a chain reaction in every aspect of an ecosystem, which could devastate, degrade or even reshape that ecosystem.
Sinkholes and subsidence are consequences of groundwater over-extraction. It occurs when large amounts of groundwater have been withdrawn from certain types of rocks, such as fine-grained sediments. So, despite various causes, groundwater withdrawal is still the main trigger of land subsidence.
Subsidence is a problem that occurs when the ground level sinks from over-pumping and resulting in depressurization. The land just compacts because there’s reduced pressure. The most extreme example of this condition is in San Joaquin Valley, California, where the ground level has sunk by more than eight meters since the 1920s — that’s nearly the height of a telegraph pole.
The rock compacts because the water is partly responsible for holding the ground up. When the water is withdrawn, the rocks fall in on itself. Man may not notice land subsidence too much because it can occur over large areas rather than in a small spot, like a sinkhole. Of course, it doesn’t mean that subsidence is not a big event.
Many places of the world have suffered from economic damages in hundreds of millions of dollars over the years. Several cases around the world have revealed that subsidence induced by the extraction of groundwater occurs mostly in areas, where there are relatively recent alluvial, marine, or lacustrine deposits constituted by the alternation of coarse-grained water-bearing strata with fine-grained compressible layers.
Iran’s land subsidence reaching crisis levels
Iran nowadays is faced with severe water conflicts and subsidence in most of its plains. The rate of land subsidence in the country is one of the highest, and increasing day by day, while the performance of the responsible governmental bodies is unsatisfactory. The various sectors of government are indeed a culprit and party to such problems.
Environmentalists and land experts are emphasizing the need to review the operation of wells, groundwater withdrawal, and water resources management. Some 29 provinces of 31 are currently at risk of subsidence. If this trend doesn’t stop, there will regrettably be great irreversible environmental degradation.
Iran’s immediate way out of its environmental crisis is a ban on excess extraction of water from underground resources, a scientific review of surface water use, a critical review of IRGC dams construction, water transfer systems, and finally implementing a plan for the maintenance of land reserves.
The last 42 years have shown that Iran’s Clerical Regime has no plan for the collection and harvesting of flash floods which has led to economic devastation, loss of lives, and massive destruction of homes and infrastructure in the past few years. The government’s negligence, and its systematic natural resources mismanagement have been going on since 1979 when the Islamic Republic took power.
Groundwater exploitation has dramatically been increased over the past decades leading to aquifer depletion. Now, this condition has caused the creation of massive cracks in more than 405 Iranian plains, such as in Fars, southwestern Iran, the central provinces of Isfahan and Markazi, and the capital Tehran, to name a few. Iran’s government has claimed the reason for the water crisis is persistent droughts, but in truth, it’s mostly due to plundering of water resources, enormous IRGC dams construction, massive deforestation, destruction of rangelands due to overgrazing, persistent land subsidence, and desertification.
Over the past decades, some of the aquifer levels have dropped by 100 centimeters. In addition, digging illegal wells, improper irrigation methods are the other main causes of groundwater extraction-induced subsidence, as out of 50,000 wells pumping underground water resources in and around the capital, 30,000 are illegal. Out of 609 plains in Iran, more than 300 are vastly sinking and forbidden to enter.
As it was mentioned earlier, water shortages have created many conflicts, but these conflicts are not between locals in various provinces. The main conflict is between the ruling clerics and the people who have been taken hostage by their violent and corrupt government.
The recent incident of farmers uprising in Khuzestan, southwestern Iran and the central province of Isfahan, and various other places in Iran are a clear indication of the aforementioned conflict.
In Iran’s clerical regime, the IRGC and religious foundations under the supervision of the regime’s Supreme Leader are the owners of the country’s wealth, including its water.
Iran’s environmental crisis is not only limited to inside the country’s borders. It will spill over and contribute to the global environmental crisis. And of course, this will not be resolved as long as the clerics are in power.
Khalil Khani is an Environmental Specialist and a Human Rights activist. He holds a Ph.D. in Ecology, Botany, and Environmental Studies from Germany and has taught at the University of Tehran and the Hesse State University in Germany. He is also a Doctor of Medical Psychology from the United States.
