No More Water Resources; How to Resolve Water Problems? | Mehadi Fasihi harandi | TEDxEsfahan

A few years ago, it was unimaginable that people in the alleys of Isfahan, would stand in line begging for water. What has happened to Isfahan and Zayandehrud? What is the root cause? Some say, bad decisions combined to the climate change and drought made the situation more complicated; in the mid 50s, Iran had 90 billion cubic meters of surface water, but in the 1990s, it dramatically decreased to 50 billion! So, we Iranians built dams, manipulated watersheds in every way possible to solve the water problem. However, the more we constructed, the less fairly water was distributed. Surface water was depleted, so we turned to groundwater. The number of wells increased from 60,000 in the 1960s to one million in 2023. What is the consequences? Annual land subsidence of Isfahan is around 20 centimeters. In this lecture, I elaborate on the root cause of why Zayandehrud dried up? It lies with issues such as socio-political conflicts, ethnic tensions, livelihood deficiencies, unemployment, migration. Although these are water_oriented problems, but the solutions are not necessarily solely water oriented! We have to fill the development Cliff not just with water. It is a matter of development gap among the Persian states. Mehdi Fasihi is an international water and energy professional and policy analyst who has worked internationally for several years. He has been involved as the associate dean and policy analyst at Iran Center for Strategic Studies CSS, in the field of water and energy nexus. Before that, as a researcher he worked at Delft University of Technology and then at Harvard and Tufts Universities on PoN and Water Diplomacy programs. Prior to that, he was the co-founder of the consultant engineering company of Payandab Tavan, working in the roles of project manager, chartered engineer and CEO. He also worked at IWPCo as a design engineer in the field of small hydropower. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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