Water diversion exposes more than a million hectares of Ahwazi lands to desertification

Ahwazna

The Director General of Department of Natural Resources in the north of Ahwaz, Aziz Arsham, during his interview with journalists quoted by the Iranian Keyhan newspaper as saying that” one million and two hundred thousand hectares of Ahwazi arable lands have almost become useless desert lands.

In his remarks about desertification phenomena; he attributed the reasons to high rate of temperature and increasing Speed ​​of evaporation of surface water ignoring the excessive construction of dozens of dams on Ahwazi Rivers and pumping the waters  to the arid Persian central areas which has caused 60% of Ahwazi lands experienced the worst ever long-term drought and most severe set of crop failures.

Since the occupier regime began its water diversion projects in Ahwaz region, it is estimated one and half million of economically vulnerable Ahwazi Arabs dependent on agriculture have been driven into extreme poverty due to water shortages and land desertification. Consequently this problem has led to a massive exodus of Arab farmers and hundreds of agriculturally dependent rural families from Ahwaz countryside to the cities. These systematic policies have been pursued in line of internal displacement of Arab people and changing the Arabic demographic structure of Ahwaz region.