Evaluation of Technical and Operational Issues in Some Qanats in Kerman Province

Qanat is a traditional structure that provides water without spending much energy and expense. Therefore, in eastern regions where there are no big rivers available qanat can play an important role in public economy and should be taken into consideration. The regions around Kerman such as Joupar, Mahan, Bam, Narmashir and Fahraj have many qanats with high discharges. Therefore, protection of this water resource is essential in view of either our cultural heritage or water resources. For this reason, in the present research exploitation problems, water distribution, planting pattern, and variation of water quality and quantity in 15 qanats of Kerman province were studied. Results showed that qanats’ discharges have changed in long run and had a noticeable decrease in the recent decade, and as a result planting pattern and areas in downstream fields have been changed. In the above mentioned fields, average water conveyance efficiency and roughness coefficient in water canals and mean application efficiency were 83.6 percent, 0.024 and 59.3 percent, respectively. Mean water productivity for cultivated crops such as wheat, alfalfa, sugar beet, grain corn, forage corn, watermelon was 0.43, 0.51, 0.31, 0.65, 4.75, 8, and for horticultural crops such as pistachio, almond, date palm, citrus, and stone and pome fruit was 0.52, 0.3, 0.66, 1.1, and 0.54 kg/m3, respectively. Based on the results, the main problems of qanats are the lack of necessary budget allocation by agricultural organizations, digging deep wells on qanats border, technical issues, exploitation, and maintenance management problems.