Abedin Taherkenareh / EPA
Widespread discontent brought millions of protesters to the country’s streets. The crisis was also fueled in part by a lack of water and poor air quality – the result of the errors of the theocratic regime, according to experts.
Iranians suffer from a lack of water and some of the worst air quality in the world, environmental crises that fuel criticism and anger against the country’s theocratic regime.
“If I had to use one word, it would be poor management“, tells DW Hamid Pouran, an environmental technology researcher who studied in Iran and now lives in the United Kingdom.
The country’s most pressing environmental concern is the worst drought in decades, now in its sixth consecutive year. The problem has become so serious that in November Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said there was no choice but to transfer the capital of Tehran to the south of the country, closer to the Persian Gulf, which would not solve the water crisis in itself.
Although Iran is characterized by an arid climate, little rainfall and mountainous terrain, environmental researchers say its ecological problems are largely due to corruption and misguided policiesfocused on short-term gains. These and other issues brought thousands of Iranians to the streets in protests, repressed with a level of violence unprecedented in recent decades. The scenario is worsened by global warming, which increases the risk of drought in Iran tenfold.
“Climate change has exacerbated the problems,” adds Pouran. “Nobody denies that. But mismanagement, even in uncertain economic conditions, is the problem.”
Insufficient water for agriculture
Almost all of the country’s water is used for agriculture. Excluded from much global trade, Iran has focused on establishing food self-sufficiency and, over the years, it has allowed farmers to drill wells into deep underground aquifers.
As a result, there are nearly twice as many wells in Iran now as there were two decades ago, and research suggests that more than 300 of its 609 aquifers are in critical condition. Around 70% of the country’s total water demand exists in areas where aquifers have been exploited to exhaustion.
“About ten years ago, the wells have dried up because all the aquifers are depleted, and there are hectares and hectares and hectares of pistachio plantations that have turned into coal. The sun burned the trees,” explains Houchang Chehabi, a historian at Boston University who specializes in Iranian politics.
And it’s not just pistachios that suffer. Iran no longer has the water resources necessary to sustain the production of its main crops: wheat, barley, rice and corn.
When aquifers are over-exploited without allowing them to be naturally replenished, the ground slowly sinks. Around 3.5% of Iran has suffered this subsidence, which can cause damage to roads, buildings and pipes.
There was also relentless pressure to build hundreds of dams across the country in recent decades, although in the last 20 years more than half of the total capacity has remained unused. These capital projects disrupt the flow of rivers and accelerate the evaporation of reservoirs.
“Often, these dams have been built in places where they shouldn’t have been built,” notes Alex Vatanka, who founded the Iran program at the Middle East Institute think tank. “You feasibility studies have not been done and they have caused ecological damage to extents and proportions that we have never seen before.”
“The State favored dams that were built because there was money at stake”, he states.
More than 30 dams were built in northwestern Iran on rivers that fed Lake Urmia, once the largest saltwater lake in the Middle East. Now, he is almost completely dry.
Nearly one third of the population now lives in areas with water scarcity. The drop in agricultural production has driven up food prices, and farmers have fled to urban centers, increasing pressure on water resources in cities.
Lack of access to water has already taken Iranians to the streets in the past. In 2021, several people were killed and hundreds arrested as part of the “Thirsty Uprising,” and “water, electricity, life — our absolute rights” has become a rallying cry in protests over the past year.
Iranian cities suffocated
Almost 80% of Iran’s population lives in urban areas, where the air is highly polluted. Government data suggests that almost 60 thousand people died as a result of toxic air in 2024. This equates to 161 people per day.
Schools and public offices tend to close on days with particularly bad air, and Tehran is often among the cities with the worst air quality in the world.
Most of Tehran’s pollution comes from vehicles that operate on low-quality fuel and, according to experts, have outdated technology.
“Car manufacturers in Iran can produce better cars in terms of cleaner air, but they get away with it because the market is closed, there is no foreign competition, so they can sell whatever they want,” says Vatanka.
In addition to cars, pollution comes from fuel oilan extremely dirty petroleum byproduct, which Iran uses to power its power plants in the winter months.
And the water crisis also plays a role. As lakes and rivers dry up, wind lifts dangerous particles of dust and sand from exposed lakebeds and carries them long distances.
Although Tehran is almost surrounded by mountains, which trap polluted air, environmental researchers say that poor governance is the main factor contributing to pollution.
“There is nothing in Iranian air that makes it prone to being polluted,” says Vatanka. “It’s a issue of bad policieslack of attention, isolation.”
There are solutions, but there is a lack of implementation
While there are solutions that could improve Iran’s environmental problems, Vatanka sees a lack of political will to implement them. He points out that some alternative solutions do not address the root of the problemssuch as the regime’s plan to build a pipeline to transport desalinated water from the Persian Gulf to central Iran, 800 kilometers away.
Environmental experts recommend that Iran focus on long-term solutions such as wastewater recycling.
“What could be done is an intensive wastewater management program to capture some of Tehran’s wastewater and then reuse it,” says Chehabi. “But in the current situation, this would require a level of planning, coordination, among other things, that it simply doesn’t exist.”
Environmentalists are also calling for agricultural reform to abandon water-intensive crops and the repair of “qanats”, an ancient Persian tunneling technology that channels water from aquifers, which are disintegrating due to excessive pumping.
Missed opportunities
Although two-thirds of Iran receives sunlight 300 days a yearthe country generates less than 4% of its electricity from renewable energy, according to a 2022 International Renewable Energy Agency report. This is despite its largest trading partner, China, being a world leader in solar panel production.
Although Iran has the third largest oil reserves in the world, it frequently suffers from blackouts and energy shortages due to the low investment in your electrical networkold infrastructure and a system of political clientelism.
“The opportunities are immense for Iran, but until there is a vision and a serious approach to economic development, opportunities such as solar and wind energy will be lost,” laments Vatanka. “You need focus, you need economic vision, and that doesn’t exist in this regime.”
