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DesalData Weekly - October 5th, 2016

Posted 05 October, 2016 by Mandy

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Iranian farmer, Karim Baluchi, loading hay onto a truck in Qiyasabad, Iran.  Credit: Carolyn Cole/ Los Angeles Times

Persistent drought in Iran is changing the landscape, and the lives of those who tend to it. Across a parched farm belt, 60 miles southeast of Tehran, “Watermelons once sprung from th[e] soil, the giant striped fruit dotting the arid landscape like mushrooms after a rain.”[1]  Now, “the dusty earth crunches underfoot like biscuits.” As reported in The Los Angeles Times, farmers in Iran, like those in California’s Central Valley, have suffered deeply from the damaging effects of persistent drought. Problems with “environmental mismanagement,” population growth, and an economic crisis (due to international sanctions) have only exacerbated their struggles. The Iranian public is also reeling from water scarcity. As of June 2016, more than 70 percent of the country’s 80 million inhabitants “were living in ‘prolonged drought’ conditions.”[2]

 

The Times drew quick agricultural comparisons of its home base and the foreign nation. California’s agriculture sector uses 80 percent of the water and accounts for 2 percent of the economy; while Iranian agriculture utilizes 90 percent of the nation’s water supply, and contributes to 15 percent of its economy. And in both places, farmers have been digging for and depleting groundwater reserves at great speed. Yet the water supply made available to Iran’s agriculturalists has not prevented a tragic loss of lands, farms, crops, jobs, and economic security. Farmers are in desperate need of greater government support and “water-sensitive farming practices.”[3]

 

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A solar desalination unit in the Central Valley, Credit: WaterFX / National Geographic

 

One such water-sensitive initiative is underway in the Central Valley. The San Francisco-based company WaterFX has created a desalination project, called HydroRevolution, which proposes to redress the perennial loss of irrigation water.  The project aims to produce 6,056,658 cubic metres of clean water per year from the “salty, contaminated agricultural drainage” water of 7,000 farm acres in the Panoche District.[4]  It will use the ubiquitous California sun to power this process: parabolic mirrors will “concentrate the sun’s energy, heating a tube that then distils fresh water out of the salty drainage.”  WaterFX proclaims that its system is the “most efficient solar desalination available.” It is capable of producing 246,052 cubic metres of water per acre of solar collection area; and will “reclaim” the salts and metals it extracts from the drainage water.

 

Meanwhile, the years-long drought in California has fuelled one of the state’s “most active and dangerous fire seasons.”[5] Earlier this week, a fast-moving fire scorched more than 2,250 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains, causing the evacuation of hundreds of people from their homes. The rugged terrain of canyons and hillsides made the work of hundreds of firefighters even more difficult.[6] This wildfire has been one among several others raging across Northern and Southern California. As of late August, hundreds of fires have contributed to the loss of more than 420,000 acres of land across the state.[7] The scorching is expected to continue through the fall, for two more months: the “humidity is typically low, vegetation is at its driest, and winds such as the infamous Santa Ana can howl.”[8]

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Shashank Bengali, Ramin Mostaghim, “As Drought Grips Iran, Farmers Lament Loss of a Way of Life,” Los Angeles Times, September 28, 2016, <http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-iran-drought-snap-story.html> accessed September 29, 2016.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Sandra Postel, “Solar Desalination Could be a Game Changer for California Farms,” National Geographic, July 20, 2015 <http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/20/solar-desalination-could-be-a-game-changer-for-california-farms/> accessed September 30, 2016.

[5] Doyle Rice, “California Already Enduring Fierce Fire Season—And Worst is Yet to Come,” USA Today, August 25, 2016, < http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2016/08/25/california-wildfires/89358428/> accessed September 30, 2016.

[6] Veronica Rocha and Richard Winton, “California Wildfires Scorch Parched Hillsides and Destroy One Home in Sweltering Heat,” Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2016, < http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-wildfires-southern-northern-california-20160927-snap-story.html> accessed September 29, 2016.

[7] Doyle Rice, “California Already Enduring Fierce Fire Season—And Worst is Yet to Come.”

[8] Ibid.

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