Experts Discuss Water Crisis; Deputy Minister of Agriculture Claims 'We Have Water for 2 Billion People'

While many Iranian and international experts have warned about the water crisis in the country for years, the Deputy Minister of Agricultural Jihad stated that with proper water governance, considering annual rainfall, and relying on it, we can supply the water needed for two billion people. Abbasali Nobakht claimed on Sunday, May 21, at a conference on optimizing facilities held in Alborz province that even if we build a wall around the country and have no connections with others, we can still manage the country's affairs. He also added, 'In the matter of water, if we pay attention to the statistics from the Ministry of Energy that announce the average drinking water consumption per Iranian, and also the amount of water that remains after rainfall, which the Research Center of the Parliament has also reported, if we do not consider industrial and agricultural water and assume that the existing water in the country is only for drinking, with the amount of water left after rainfall, we can supply drinking water for 2 billion people.' Roozbeh Eskandari, a water expert and advisor on water affairs in British Columbia, Canada, responded to the Deputy Minister's claim in an exclusive interview with VOA, saying, 'The officials of the Islamic Republic are very fond of announcing round numbers and make statements without awareness and knowledge of the problems.' He added, 'Iran currently ranks first in land subsidence and the highest water consumption in agriculture and river water, and the Islamic Republic officials, due to mismanagement, cannot even supply the water needed for 85 million Iranians.' This water expert advised Islamic Republic officials to stop insulting experts and making unscientific statements and instead focus on securing the water rights of Sistan and Baluchestan from the Hirmand River and saving the lives of the province's residents. Kaveh Madani, a prominent Iranian water scientist and head of the Water, Environment, and Health Institute at the United Nations University, also reacted to these statements in a short tweet, asking, 'Why only 2 billion people?' He further shared a statement from the dismissed Minister of Labor, Hojjatollah Abdolmaleki, in the presence of Ali Khamenei, stating, 'Previously, it was about 150 million people.' Abdolmaleki mentioned that if we can optimally use the existing resources and increase Iran's population to 150 million, we can become the world's leading power. Mohammad Fazeli, former advisor to the Minister of Energy and former head of the Center for Social Affairs of Water and Energy Resources, also reacted to this claim in a tweet, saying, 'Ask him to publish a scientific report supporting this claim; these people sell such claims to higher-ups and rise through the ranks, destroying a territory in the process. We witness the depth of patronage.'