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 Km2) 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.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Antharvedi U (2013) Urban environment—sustainable development (8 Jan 2007). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=955789 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.955789. Accessed 24 Oct 2013
Azadeh A, Faiz ZS (2011) A meta-heuristic framework for forecasting household electricity consumption. Appl Soft Comput 11:614–620
Benoit L (2009) Long-term energy consumptions of urban transportation: a prospective simulation of transport–land uses policies in Bangalore. Energy Policy 37(3):940–953
Chao L, Qing S (2011) An empirical analysis of the influence of urban form on household travel and energy consumption. Comput Environ Urban Syst 35(5):347–357
Desai V, Potter BR (2002) The companion to development studies. Oxford University Press Inc., New York
EPA (2011) United nation environmental protection agency, energy star performance ratings methodology for incorporating source energy use, pp 3
Fars Province National Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC) (2013) http://www.niopdc.ir/HomePage.aspx?TabID=5374&Site=fars.niopdc&Lang=en-US
Iran Statistical Centre (2006). General population and housing census 2006 and 1996. Shiraz, Iran
Karimi A, Karimi B, Roshani A (2009) Evaluation of Shiraz physical development with emphasis on natural factors. J Geogr Zagros Landscape 1(1):5–18
Maxwell D, Levin C, Armar-Klemesu M, Ruel M, Morris S, Ahiadeke C (2000) Urban livelihoods and food and nutrition security in Greater Accra, Ghana. IFPRI, Research Report 112. International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC
National Cartographic Centre (2011) Shiraz aerial photograph. National Cartographic Centre, Tehran, Iran
Pauchard A, Aguayo M, Pena E, Urrutia R (2006) Multiple effects of urbanization on the biodiversity of developing countries: the case of a fast-growing metropolitan area (Concepcion, Chile). Biol Conserv 127:272–281
Shiraz Municipality (2006) Recognition of the comprehensive plan and Shiraz detailed design. Shiraz, Iran
Shiraz Power Distribution Company (2013) http://www.shirazedc.co.ir/PrintPage.aspx?Page_=form&PageID=603&PageIDF=&lang=1&tempname=mainsite&sub=0. Accessed 24 Oct 2013
South Asia: State of the Environment (2001) United nations environment programme. http://www.rrcap.unep.org/pub/soe/sa_part2_4.pdf. Accessed 24 Oct 2013
Todaro MP, Smith S (2006) Economic development, 9th edn. Prentice Hall, New Jersey
Toloeyan A (2006) Energy management and its relationship to sustainable development and environmental pollution. In: Paper presented at fifth conference on optimization buildings fuel consumption, Tehran, Iran
U.S. Energy Information Administration/Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States (EIA) (2008) Emissions of greenhouse gases, the United States. www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt. Accessed 20 Oct 2013
U.S. Energy Information Administration/Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States (EIA) (2011) ENERGY STAR Performance Ratings Methodology for Incorporating Source Energy Use. http://www.energystar.gov/ia/business/evaluate_performance/site_source.pdf. Accessed 17 Oct 2013
Verburg PH, Veldkamp TH, Bouma J (1999) Land use change under condition of high population pressure: the case of Java. Glob Environ Change 9:302–312
Weng Q (2002) Land use change analysis in the Zhujiang Delta of China using satellite remote sensing, GIS and stochastic modeling. J Environ Manage 64:273–284
Acknowledgments
We wish to express our sincere appreciation to Khanesazan Bonyan Marsoos Co. for its special cooperation in collecting data and also we would like to thank Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch and Islamic Azad University Firouzabad Branch for their financial support.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Esfandiari-Baiat, M., Barzegar, Z., Yousefi, L., Maheshwari, B. (2014). Urbanisation and Its Effects on Water, Food Security and Energy Needs in Iran: A Case Study of City of Shiraz. In: Maheshwari, B., Purohit, R., Malano, H., Singh, V., Amerasinghe, P. (eds) The Security of Water, Food, Energy and Liveability of Cities. Water Science and Technology Library, vol 71. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8878-6_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8878-6_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-8877-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-8878-6
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)