Editor’s message: Current state of hydrogeology education in Iran and the major shortfalls

Abstract

The classical education of ‘Hydrogeology’ in Iran does not trace back to long ago, despite the notion that the invention of the qanat, the oldest yet scientifically and ecologically sound groundwater abstraction system, is credited to Ancient Persia and despite the fact that Iran depends on groundwater for more than 50% of its water needs. Currently, there are seven governmental universities and one private university that offer MSc programs in hydrogeology; three of these offer courses leading to PhD degrees. Shiraz University, the first institution to provide a hydrogeology course in Iran, commenced its Masters program only 20 years ago in 1988. A PhD program in hydrogeology was founded by the same university, but 10 years later in 1998. However, before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, there were scattered institutions which used to run MSc programs in hydrogeology but not on a sizeable routine basis. Institutions currently involved in hydrogeology education include, in the order of starting date of the program, Shiraz University (Shiraz), Shahid Chamran University (Ahvaz), Shahid Beheshti University (Tehran), University of Tabriz (Tabriz), University of Sistan and Baluchestan (Zahedan), Shahrood University of Technology (Shahrood) and Tarbiat Moalem University in Tehran. The private university, namely Islamic Azad University offers an MSc in hydrogeology at its Tehran branch of Science and Research. Out of these, Shiraz, Shahid Beheshti and very recently Tabriz University offer PhD programs. Depending on the human capacity and facilities available, every year or every two years, these universities admit up to three PhD students each. Annual intake of MSc students is limited to fewer than 10 for each university. The spatial distribution of these institutions in the north, south, east and west of the country is uniform, enabling universities to cover all parts of the country in terms of hydrogeology research and education. It is estimated that some 500 hydrogeologists with MSc degrees and about 10 hydrogeologists with PhD degrees have graduated from all the above intuitions during the last two decades. It has to be pointed out that the above data are pertinent to hydrogeologists, i.e. graduates with background in geology who completed their studies at geology, geosciences or earth sciences departments. MSc programs in groundwater in civil engineering, irrigation engineering or water engineering departments are treated differently and are not discussed here. Subjects taught at these departments often are similar to hydrogeology subjects; a good discussion in this regard is the paper by Weissmann (2006). Geology is a less important subject in high school in Iran. It is taught for only two hours per week, and during the last two years only, to students who choose the experimental sciences field (There are four fields of study in high school: experimental sciences, mathematics and physics, humanities, and arts.) In addition, the quality of performance in the subject of geology has little impact for high school graduates who decide to continue their studies towards higher education in universities. Moreover, because of the physical harshness of this field of study, for a period of time there was a ban on girls entering undergraduate geology courses, although the ban has now been lifted. One more disappointing fact is that at the universities, the curriculum of undergraduate studies in geology involves only two subjects of hydrogeology and hydrogeochemistry, with the latter even being an elective subject. Despite this dire picture of geology, the situation for hydrogeology in graduate and postgraduate programs is bright. Among all sub-disciplines of geology, namely sedimentlogy and sedimentary rocks, paleontology and stratigraphy, environmental geology, petroleum geology, tectonics and structural geology, economic geology, petrology, engineering geology, hydrogeology, and geophysics, the last three are the most preferred ones by Received: 13 December 2008 /Accepted: 2 March 2009 Published online: 20 March 2009