Urbanization and its Effects on Water, Food Security and Energy Needs in Iran, a Case Study: City of Shiraz

Urbanization is threatening the sustainability of the water, food and energy security of Iran. The most important reason of urbanization is immigration of people from rural areas to the cities. The city of Shiraz is located in the Shiraz Plain (380 Km2), south of Iran. Its population in 1956 was170,659 and in 2006 was 1,351,181. This means the population of Shiraz grew about eight fold during this period. While, that of Iran during the same period grew about four fold. This shows that the rate of immigration to Shiraz was very high, and urbanization around Shiraz has happened very fast in the above period. In 1956, the Shiraz had a beautiful landscape; its size was 894 hectares and was surrounded by 1,565 hectares of beautiful gardens and 35,714 hectares of good agricultural land, fertile arable land, and rangeland. In 1989, Shiraz had 5,962 hectares of gardens. In 2006, Shiraz size became 19,074 hectares (21 fold) and this rapid urbanization has replaced not only 2,987 hectares of valuable gardens but also caused disappearance of some 18,000 hectares of agricultural land, fertile arable land, and rangeland. Therefore, changes in land use in the Shiraz Plain because of rapid urbanization were very high and this not only decreased seriously agricultural and horticultural productions, but also created significant problems for the people in the city. Due to the rapid urbanization, the demand for water has increased 15 times in the city in the period of 1956-2006. The consumption of energy in Iranian residential sector is high and it was 2.5 fold of the world. According to Shiraz electricity consumption records from 1968 to 2006, the consumption growth was 70 fold. The preliminary analysis in this study through the case study of Shiraz suggests that we need in-depth study to understand how urbanization 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 for sustainable and livable cities into the future.