Planning for Sustainable Industrial Growth
Besides agriculture, industry is an important economic sector in the Zayandeh Rud catchment. More than 350,000 people work in large steel and cement factories, oil refineries and around 13,000 small businesses. In the medium and long term, the region needs industrial development in order to keep or rather raise the citizens’ standard of living.
With the international sanctions coming to an end Iran will most probably undergo an economic boom. In the coming years a further expansion of the industrial sector in the Zayandeh Rud catchment is therefore very likely, and an increasing water demand between around 70% (according to the project’s scenario) and around 130% (according to a scenario by the Isfahan Regional Water Board Co.) by 2025 is expected.
Less is more: Water use reduction and alternative water sources
For the industrial sector approaches are needed to lower water consumption, to reuse water within the company, and to develop new water sources. Therefore, the demands of the Iranian partners and the international experience of the German project team were brought together to develop sustainable and custom-fit measures to be implemented in the second funding phase. These include tests for the use of alternative water sources, the optimization of an industrial wastewater treatment plant and the exemplary design of an industrial settlement using the ‘eco-industrial park’ model. By 2018, the two work packages “Alternative Water Resources for Industrial Processes” and “Industrial Settlements Designed after the ‘Eco-Industrial Park’ Concept” are expected to generate locally adjusted strategies and measures for sustainable industrial growth.