Dr. Newsha Ajami of Stanford University, speaking at the second Water Management Workshop held at Sharif University the previous summer, argued that although many solutions had been proposed for water scarcity, conservation is the cheapest and most readily available response.
Ajami noted significant climatic and meteorological similarities between Iran and California. California was the fiftieth U.S. state, she observed, meaning that when its modern water systems were developed, much of the engineering knowledge for water control, transfer, and canal construction was already available. The state therefore built highly advanced infrastructure for managing and moving water.
Yet much of that infrastructure had become outdated and required renewal. Systems designed about fifty years earlier for roughly 15 million people were serving a population of about 38 million, with projections cited in the talk placing California near 50 million by 2050.
Ajami argued that drought and climate-related changes were gradually altering public behaviour. Citizens should increasingly become part of decision-making and solution development, as had also happened in water-rich parts of Europe. This not only involves society in addressing water scarcity but changes management from a one-way process into a two-way relationship.
Californians, she said, were increasingly recognizing that preventing pollution of small local water sources could preserve clean water for others. In this view, usable clean water is not limited to reservoirs behind dams. Expensive and difficult options such as seawater desalination should therefore come later in the hierarchy of responses.
At the same time, some consumers were willing to pay dramatically more for bottled water—even when its source was not particularly transparent—while resisting the cost of maintaining public water infrastructure. The talk cited substantial energy use associated with transporting, treating, and moving water in California and emphasized that every unit of water conserved also reduces those associated costs.
Ajami questioned why highly treated drinking-quality water, distributed through Iranian pipes at considerable expense, should be used for lawns and ornamental green space. In California, residents had been encouraged not to irrigate lawns heavily because a large portion of outdoor household consumption was associated with landscape watering. Many households consequently shifted toward plants better adapted to local conditions and requiring less water.
The talk also described household monitoring systems that evaluate monthly water consumption and provide feedback or scores. Such feedback can create friendly competition among residents to conserve more, with positive behavioural effects.
Finally, Ajami referred to planning for more absorbent or “sponge-like” street surfaces capable of capturing rainfall and helping it infiltrate underground. She ended by asking which comparable measures had been seriously planned for Iran. [source]