Urbanisation and Its Effects on Water, Food Security and Energy Needs in Iran: A Case Study of City of Shiraz

Abstract

Urbanisation is threatening the sustainability of water, food and energy security in Iran. The primary reason for urbanisation is the migration of people from rural areas to cities. The city of Shiraz is located in the Shiraz Plain (380 Km(2)) in southern Iran. Its population in 1956 was 170,659 and grew to 1,351,181 in 2006. The population of Shiraz grew about 8 fold during this period while that of Iran during the same period only grew about 4 fold, indicating that the rate of migration was very high and urbanisation around Shiraz happened very fast in the same period. In 1956, Shiraz had a beautiful landscape, its size was 894 ha and it was surrounded by 1,565 ha of beautiful gardens and 35,714 ha of good agricultural land, fertile arable land and rangeland. In 1989, Shiraz had 5,962 ha of gardens. In 2006, Shiraz's size grew to 19,074 ha (21 fold growth) and this rapid urbanisation has replaced not only 2,987 ha of valuable gardens but also caused the disappearance of some 18,000 ha of agricultural land, fertile arable land, and rangeland. Changes in land use in the Shiraz Plain, because of rapid urbanisation, were very high and have seriously reduced agricultural and horticultural production and also created significant problems for the people in the city. Due to rapid urbanisation, the demand for water has increased 15 times in the city during the period of 1956-2006. The consumption of energy in the Iranian residential sector is high and it was 2.5 fold of the world's average consumption. According to the power consumption records from the Shiraz electricity company between 1968 and 2006 consumption grew 70 fold. The preliminary analysis in this study through the case study of Shiraz suggests that we need an in-depth study to understand how urbanisation has impacted on the availability of water supplies, the security of food production around our cities and the energy needs at the national level and what policy and planning changes are required to achieve sustainable and liveable cities in the future.