Goals

Within the “IWRM Zayandeh Rud” project Iranian and German partners have been developing and implementing a water management concept for the entire catchment which is accepted by all stakeholders. Both partner countries combine their skills to achieve the project objectives: to make water use along the river sustainable and to balance the competing interests of the different water users.

The German consortium involves 7 scientific institutes and companies specialised in water economics. The Iranian consortium involves 15 governmental bodies, research and consulting institutions. inter 3 is the German project leader and coordinator.

After consulting the Iranian Ministry of Energy it was decided that the Iranian project coordinator would be the Isfahan Regional Water Company, and that all important regional stakeholders have to be involved in the project.

Both partner countries combine their skills to achieve the project objectives: to make water use along the river sustainable and to balance the competing interests of the different water users.

The overarching aim of the project is to present options for integrated water management in Iran and the entire region using the example of the Zayandeh Rud catchment. The project team has been working towards this goal since 2010 in two stages. The focus of the first stage was to get to know the catchment and its main water management actors and institutions, to collect data and to define the necessary tools for IWRM. After these tasks were successfully fulfilled in early 2015, the second stage has now turned its attention towards implementing the IWRM concept.

A necessary precondition for IWRM is that the relevant actors of the affected provinces, sectors and national institutions become aware that they do not only sit in one boat but also have to row in the same direction. IWRM requires discussion and agreement on the measures to be taken and to cooperate in order to reach a common goal.

With that in mind the project team has created an IWRM concept in close collaboration with the Iranian partners and chosen a set of appropriate technologies and management tools which should work effectively in the second project stage.