The Groundwater‒Energy‒Food Nexus in Iran’s Agricultural Sector: Implications for Water Security

Abstract

This paper presents the first groundwater‒energy‒food (GEF) nexus study of Iran’s agronomic crops based on national and provincial datasets and firsthand estimates of agricultural groundwater withdrawal. We use agronomic crop production, water withdrawal, and energy consumption data to estimate groundwater withdrawal from electric-powered irrigation wells and examine agronomic productivity in Iran’s 31 provinces through the lens of GEF nexus. The ex-post GEF analysis sheds light on some of the root causes of the nation’s worsening water shortage problems. Access to highly subsidized water (surface water and groundwater) and energy has been the backbone of agricultural expansion policies in Iran, supporting employment in agrarian communities. Consequently, water use for agronomic crop production has greatly overshot the renewable water supply capacity of the country, making water bankruptcy a serious national security threat. Significant groundwater table decline across the country and increasing energy consumption underscore dysfunctional feedback relations between agricultural water and energy price and groundwater withdrawal in an inefficient agronomic sector. Thus, it is essential to implement holistic policy reforms aimed at reducing agricultural water consumption to alleviate the looming water bankruptcy threats, which can lead to the loss of numerous agricultural jobs in the years to come.

Iran's Agriculture in the Anthropocene

“…Clearly, the changes in irrigated agricultural area and production in Iran did not follow the patterns of natural water availability changes across time and space. The continued increase in irrigated agricultural area and production despite the reduction in precipitation have not been feasible without extensive reservoir building for surface water storage (Madani, 2014), implementing interbasin water transfer projects (Gohari, Eslamian, Mirchi, et al, 2013; Madani & Mariño, 2009; Mirchi & Madani, 2016) and overuse of groundwater (Mirzaei et al, 2019) that have created significant environmental and socioeconomic problems (Madani, 2014; Madani et al, 2016; Shahriar et al, 2018; Sharifikia, 2013).…”

“…The overuse of groundwater (Mirzaei et al, 2019; Nabavi, 2018) has resulted in declining groundwater tables, land subsidence (Haghighi & Motagh, 2019; Motagh et al, 2008, 2017; Mousavi et al, 2001), and sinkholes (Madani, 2014; Vajedian & Motagh, 2019). Saltwater intrusion due to groundwater table decline as well as the lack of effective drainage systems have increased salinity in agricultural lands, limiting agricultural productivity and crop choices.…”

“…The country has varying climates from north to south and east to west. While the northern and western parts of the country are humid and the mountainous regions, relatively, have good water availability due to snow accumulation and melt, the southern, eastern, and central parts of Iran are dry, have limited surface water, and rely more on groundwater resources (Abbaspour et al, 2009; Ashraf et al, 2017; Mirzaei et al, 2019). The long‐term annual precipitation over Iran is under 250 mm/year, one third of mean global precipitation.…”

“…Despite the importance and major role of the agricultural sector in Iran's political economy, food security, and environmental resilience, the studies of Iran's agricultural sector at the national level (e.g., Karandish et al, 2017; Karimi et al, 2018; Mesgaran et al, 2017; Mirzaei et al, 2019) are limited. Given the heavy reliance of the agricultural sector on water availability, it is important to examine if Iran's agriculture has been impacted by water availability changes in the country.…”

Identifying Ecosystem Key Factors to Support Sustainable Water Management

“…Bayesian Networks are decision support tools that are widely used for analyzing impacts on aquatic systems and scenario-analyses in water resources management, although this requires the identification of key system variables and understanding of their mutual relationships [62]. An example of groundwater overexploitation for crop production and the economic consequences thereof is provided by Mirzaei et al [63].…”