Climate change requires new approaches to water resource management

As the most important river in central Iran, the Zayandeh Rud supplies water to around 4.5 million people. At the same time, it is the most important water supplier for industry, agriculture and fragile ecosystems in the region, such as the Gavkhuni Salt Lake. Climate change and resource overuse have repeatedly led to the river’s complete desiccation in recent years. Together with the Iranian partners, inter 3 has developed approaches for a sustainable and more efficient use of water resources for all sectors since 2010, so that technologies and know-how from Germany could not only be transferred, but also adapted locally. Only through the creation of so-called local ownership can a sustainable implementation of the project results be ensured.

Phase III: Implementing jointly developed solutions

The "IWRM Zayandeh Rud" project is now entering the decisive implementation phase. This phase has three key objectives: First, to complete the operationalisation of the developed tools and make them applicable on a long-term basis; second, to establish the German-Iranian Training Centre for Water and Wastewater Management (GITC) on the Iranian education market and to consolidate cross-sectoral capacity development; and third, to further promote the dissemination of the IWRM concept and results in and beyond the catchment area. As in the first two project phases, inter 3 is responsible for management, coordination and, in addition to public relations work, for the implementation of various work packages.

German-Iranian cooperation: reaching the goal together

Led by inter 3, the project partners will collaborate with Iranian scientific institutions, authorities and companies to implement diverse measures in five different modules until 2022. Module (A) "River Basin Management" is about supporting the development of a management plan for the Zayandeh Rud river basin and the establishment of corresponding expert groups. In module (B) "Capacity Development", the German-Iranian Training Centre for the Water Sector will be further developed and expanded and complementary training modules will be developed. Digital technologies are also being tested for permanent communication between German and Iranian trainers and for course management.

The work in module (C) "Decision Support System" focuses on the completion of the water management model and its transfer to the everyday work of the responsible decision makers. In the fourth module (D) "Industry", the modelling results from the previous phase on water saving and reuse are implemented in a large-scale industry and relevant trainings are organised. The last module (E) "Public Relations" deals with the dissemination of the project results to the public.