Vanishing reservoirs, empty taps: how Iran's water crisis became a national emergency
In recent days, images of vast, dried-up reservoirs near Tehran have circulated on social media. These dams supply water to more than nine million people in the Iranian capital, and their depletion has sparked widespread concern. A combination of decades of drought, mismanagement, and crumbling infrastructure is driving Iran towards an unprecedented water crisis as the Middle East enters its warm season, experts warn.
A video of the Amir Kabir Dam, 30 km northwest of Tehran, taken in August 2024 shows clear blue water reaching up into the hills. In a video from the same vantage point in March 2025, the water has disappeared, replaced by a cracked, desolate lake bed.
Another video being widely shared by Iranians shows a group of motorcyclists driving on the muddy bed of the Latyan Dam reservoir, 15 km northeast of the capital. "You'd be shocked if you knew this was the bed of the Latyan reservoir,' the caption reads.
Tehran is on the brink of running out of water. Authorities are preparing to introduce rationing, with daily supply cuts expected to curb consumption as shortages worsen, officials and experts say.
Seventy percent of Tehran's water comes from five nearby dams, including Karaj and Latyan. But an unprecedented dry spell – the rainfall in Tehran since the beginning of 2025 has been the lowest recorded in 55 years – means water levels have been declining fast. State media reported on March 5 that the five reservoirs are only 13% full.
Iran has been suffering from drought for more than 40 years. Water shortages in rural areas have led to tensions between farmers and authorities they accuse of mismanaging water supplies.
Read more on The Observers - France 24Read also:How 'corruption and lucrative projects' are 'killing' the biggest lake in the Middle EastThe environmental impact of Iranian desert safarisGas shortage renders Iran's air quality 'unbreathable' due to mazut pollution
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Yahoo
Iran port blast: Rising death toll, number of casualties
The number of people killed in the explosion that rocked a major port in southern Iran has risen to 25 as of Sunday, according to Iranian state news agency IRNA. More than 700 people were injured in the blast, according to the report, and firefighters were still at the scene to extinguish the fire, but were nearly done with 80% as of Sunday, state TV quoted Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni as saying. The port, located in Hormozgan province more than 1,000 km (620 miles) south of the capital, Tehran, is Iran's largest commercial port. Local media have reported that the port handles around half of Iran's total trade and around 85-90% of all container traffic. State TV added that the port had resumed some operations. Saturday's explosion was so powerful that people heard and felt it up to 50 kilometers (30 miles) away, the state-run Fars news agency reported. According to the semi-official Tasnim news agency, the shock wave from the explosion caused severe damage to most buildings at the port. State TV said hundreds of casualties had been taken to "nearby medical centers." It also reported that schools and offices in the nearby provincial capital of Bandar Abbas had been ordered to remain closed on Sunday amid high levels of air pollution from chemicals such as ammonia, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. The Health Ministry has urged residents to avoid going outside "until further notice" and to use protective masks. Saturday is the start of the working week in Iran, which means the port was likely filled with workers when the blast occurred. Although authorities have not announced any cause of the explosion, various reports point to the possible involvement of inflammable chemicals stored at the port. State TV carried a statement by the port's customs office saying that the blast may have been ignited by a fire in the hazardous and chemical materials storage depot. The New York Times quoted a source with ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who spoke on condition of anonymity, as saying sodium perchlorate — a key ingredient in solid fuel for missiles — could have been what blew up. There is no other confirmation about the kind of chemical that may have set off the blast. The Associated Press news agency reported that the blast may have occurred because the chemical may have been improperly stored. The day of the blast was also when Iranian and US delegations met in Oman for a third round of high-level talks on Tehran's nuclear program, with both sides reporting progress. Edited by: Roshni Majumdar
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Yahoo
Clouds and conspiracies: concerns over push to make rain
Can countries control the clouds? And should they? As climate change drives floods and drought, rainmaking is in fashion across the world, despite mixed evidence that it works and concerns it can stoke cross-border tensions. While attempting to control the weather might sound like science fiction, countries have been seeding clouds for decades to try to make rain or snow fall in specific regions. Invented in the 1940s, seeding involves a variety of techniques including adding particles to clouds via aircraft. It is used today across the world in an attempt to alleviate drought, fight forest fires and even to disperse fog at airports. In 2008, China used it to try to stop rain from falling on Beijing's Olympic stadium. But experts say that there is insufficient oversight of the practice, as countries show an increasing interest in this and other geoengineering techniques as the planet warms. The American Meteorological Society has said that "unintended consequences" of cloud seeding have not been clearly shown -- or ruled out -- and raised concerns that unanticipated effects from weather modification could cross political boundaries. But experts say the main risk might be more a matter of perception. "If a country learns that its neighbour is changing the weather, it will be tempted to blame the neighbour to explain a drought," according to a research note published this month by Marine de Guglielmo Weber, a researcher at France's Strategic Research Institute at the Paris Military School (IRSEM). China, for example, is one of the world's most prolific weather modifiers, launching the Sky River initiative in 2018 with the aim of alleviating water shortages and boosting the country's food security. The country has conducted operations on the Tibetan plateau, but de Guglielmo Weber warned that this could be seen to affect water availability in downstream countries, such as its rival India. - 'Cloud theft' - French writer Mathieu Simonet, who has campaigned for clouds to have UN protection, said seeding could stoke fake news and misinformation "in today's explosive world". "I think the real risk of cloud theft is psychological," he said. In 2018, for example, an Iranian general accused Israel of "stealing clouds" to prevent rain falling in Iran, which was then suffering a severe drought. In a context of "extremely intense informational confusion", de Guglielmo Weber warned: "Sometimes it's the conspiracy that wins out," adding that this can be fuelled by mistrust of scientific institutions. In 2024, for example, following huge floods in southern Brazil and in the United Arab Emirates, thousands of climate sceptic social media accounts spread false accusations that the torrential rains were triggered by cloud seeding. De Guglielmo Weber said that raises the challenge of proving, or disproving, the role of weather modification. And there have been instances when cloud seeding was used deliberately in warfare. The United States used it during "Operation Popeye" to slow the enemy advance during the Vietnam War. In response, the UN created a 1976 convention prohibiting "military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques". A number of countries have not signed the convention, said de Guglielmo Weber. She added that the accord "is very limited" and does not apply if a country causes a climate hazard by accident. - 'Silver bullet' - Researcher Laura Kuhl said there was "significant danger that cloud seeding may do more harm than good", in a 2022 article for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "Cloud seeding is perhaps the ultimate silver bullet, in which literal silver in the form of silver iodide is infused into clouds, causing ice crystals to form and water to condense into rain or snow," wrote Kuhl, an associate professor at Northeastern University in the United States, a specialist in climate adaptation. She said technological fixes like weather manipulation could distract attention from more complex discussions and reinforce things like unequal water access. Meanwhile, research on the effects of cloud seeding on neighbouring regions is mixed -- and some evidence suggests it does not work very well even in the target area. An assessment published in 2019 by an expert team on weather modification from the World Meteorological Organization found seeding increases precipitation between "essentially zero" and around 20 percent. It recognised that more countries were turning to cloud seeding but added: "Sometimes desperate activities are based on empty promises rather than sound science." egu/klm/np/rlp
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Yahoo
Vanishing reservoirs, empty taps: how Iran's water crisis became a national emergency
In recent days, images of vast, dried-up reservoirs near Tehran have circulated on social media. These dams supply water to more than nine million people in the Iranian capital, and their depletion has sparked widespread concern. A combination of decades of drought, mismanagement, and crumbling infrastructure is driving Iran towards an unprecedented water crisis as the Middle East enters its warm season, experts warn. A video of the Amir Kabir Dam, 30 km northwest of Tehran, taken in August 2024 shows clear blue water reaching up into the hills. In a video from the same vantage point in March 2025, the water has disappeared, replaced by a cracked, desolate lake bed. Another video being widely shared by Iranians shows a group of motorcyclists driving on the muddy bed of the Latyan Dam reservoir, 15 km northeast of the capital. "You'd be shocked if you knew this was the bed of the Latyan reservoir,' the caption reads. Tehran is on the brink of running out of water. Authorities are preparing to introduce rationing, with daily supply cuts expected to curb consumption as shortages worsen, officials and experts say. Seventy percent of Tehran's water comes from five nearby dams, including Karaj and Latyan. But an unprecedented dry spell – the rainfall in Tehran since the beginning of 2025 has been the lowest recorded in 55 years – means water levels have been declining fast. State media reported on March 5 that the five reservoirs are only 13% full. Iran has been suffering from drought for more than 40 years. Water shortages in rural areas have led to tensions between farmers and authorities they accuse of mismanaging water supplies. Read more on The Observers - France 24Read also:How 'corruption and lucrative projects' are 'killing' the biggest lake in the Middle EastThe environmental impact of Iranian desert safarisGas shortage renders Iran's air quality 'unbreathable' due to mazut pollution
