Reza Talebi
( Global Voices
) – My grandfather was a farmer near Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran. Once the
largest lake in Iran, it is now a salt-ridden desert. When the water vanished,
his wheat fields dried up. Salt crept over the land, swallowing everything. He
died — not suddenly, but slowly.
Lake Urmia, Iran. Public Domain. NASA.
We watched a man who had fathered generations
crumble under the weight of thirst. He fled to Hamadan, chasing water, but lost
everything — his land, his life, and the water he sought.
While the world
fixates on Iran’s nuclear ambitions or internet controls, a quieter and
deadlier threat has been unfolding for decades: water scarcity. This crisis is
not simply about drought but the result of decades of mismanagement,
overextraction, and disregard. Iran is now teetering on the edge of social and
ecological collapse.
From the drying
wetlands of Gavkhouni to mass migration toward the north, water has become more
than an environmental issue — it’s a fault line of ethnic, political, and
economic tension transforming Iran’s geography, demographics, and stability.
Iran’s water
crisis: A looming catastrophe
Mohammad
Bazargan, secretary of the Water and Environment Task Force in Iran’s
Expediency Council, recently warned that we are dangerously close to a
full-blown water and soil disaster. He said we may soon reach a point where
“there won’t be enough room for people to sleep, let alone enough food to eat.”
Internal
climate migration is already underway. Villages in arid regions have emptied
out. Families forced to abandon homes aren’t seen as refugees, but they are —
climate refugees. This slow, creeping exodus has been unfolding for years,
largely ignored by decision-makers more focused on social media censorship than
survival.
The problem is
not just poor management, but a flawed philosophy: domination over nature
rather than stewardship. Iran’s water laws, like the Law of Equitable Water
Distribution, remain mostly on paper. Successive governments have approached
water as something to be controlled and owned, resulting in depleted aquifers,
dry rivers, and failing ecosystems.
Agronomist
Abbas Keshavarz estimates that Iran has overdrawn its groundwater reserves by
150 to 350 billion cubic meters. Mohammad Hossein Bazargan places irreversible
groundwater loss at 50 billion cubic meters over 150 years — water that will
never be replenished. Regardless of the figure, both agree: the country is
running dry.
Mismanagement
and policy failures
Older
generations viewed water scarcity as seasonal. If a river ran low, it was
blamed on rainfall. But today, even with increased inflows — like the Zayandeh
Rud River flowing more now than in the Safavid era — no water reaches the
wetlands. The issue isn’t inflow, it’s excessive consumption.
Former
Environment Department head Issa Kalantari warned in 2014 that Iran had 15
years of water left for agriculture. That leaves just four years. Iran’s
rainfall has remained relatively stable, but underground reserves — fossil
waters that take millennia to refill — have been drained at breakneck speed.
Ancient “qanat” systems were abandoned for deep wells. Oil wealth ushered in a
mindset of extraction and short-term gains.
Out of Iran’s
original 500 billion cubic meters of fossil water, 200 billion are gone. The
remaining 300 billion are saline, unusable for agriculture. Yet agricultural
practices remain wasteful: around 70–90 percent of Iran’s usable water goes to
farming, with irrigation efficiency at only 30 percent, compared to 50 percent
in Turkey or Iraq. Up to 50 billion cubic meters of water is wasted each year.
Urban areas
aren’t spared. Cities lose 25–30 percent of their water because of leaks,
mismanagement, and outdated infrastructure. By contrast, cities in the global
north lose under 10 percent. In many cities, potable water is still used to
irrigate green spaces instead of treated wastewater. Meanwhile, industries like
Mobarakeh Steel consume 210 million cubic meters of water annually — more than
entire provinces.
Iran’s
dam-building spree hasn’t helped. In 2012, there were 316 dams; by 2018, that
number surged to 647. Many were built without environmental assessments and for
political or military purposes. The Latyan Dam near Tehran, once holding 95
million cubic meters, now holds just 9 million. Groundwater levels in Tehran
have dropped by 12 meters in two decades, causing land subsidence and
destabilizing urban areas.
Military-linked
companies, especially those tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC), have seized lands near Lake Urmia, cultivating high-water crops like
watermelon. Producing one kilogram of watermelon consumes 250 liters of water —
yet it remains cheap. Some say Iran offers the “cheapest water in the world,”
but at what cost?
Ethno-hydrological
and climatic fault lines in Iran
Provinces like
Khuzestan and Lorestan are now at the heart of water-related ethnic tensions.
In Lorestan, Lur communities accuse the Persian-majority city of Isfahan of
“stealing” water through projects like the Koohrang and Beheshtabad canals.
These transfers have sparked protests, online backlash, and accusations of
“Arab cleansing.”
Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad’s government tried to appease protestors by allowing unregulated
well drilling, worsening the crisis. In Khuzestan, Arab communities accuse the
state of favoring Lurs by diverting the Karun River. The Koohrang-3 tunnel
submerged entire villages, displacing people and inflaming tensions.
In the
northwest, Lake Urmia — shared between Kurdish and Turkish-speaking populations
— has dried to a salt crust. The Zab River transfer project, meant to revive
the lake, has fueled disputes between Kurdish and Turkish communities.
Ethno-demographic shifts are already evident as Azeris migrate to Tehran and
Kurds move into Urmia.
Other
megaprojects, like transferring water from the Caspian Sea or Oman Sea, are
criticized as ecologically destructive and serving industrial elites rather
than public need. These projects highlight the government’s reliance on
unsustainable, grandiose solutions instead of real reform.
Meanwhile, the
government securitizes dissent. Environmental protests are met with repression.
Officials rarely speak out while in office. When they do, it’s often too late.
Iran’s water
crisis has also spilled across borders — into disputes with Afghanistan, Iraq,
Turkey, and Azerbaijan. But the core of the crisis remains internal: a state
model unable to listen, adapt, or act.
More than 280
cities face extreme water stress. Rainfall has dropped by over 50 percent in
some provinces. Iran ranks fourth globally for water scarcity risk. The country
is inching toward “Day Zero,” when taps may run dry completely.
Water is the
blood of the earth. It connects people across divides, yet in Iran, it is
tearing communities apart. As the rivers vanish, so too do trust, stability,
and cohesion. Ethnic tensions, economic despair, and climate migration are
converging. The silence surrounding this crisis is deafening.
If ignored,
water, not war, may become Iran’s greatest existential threat.
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