Iran is facing multiple resource crises brought on by climate change, sanctions, successive mistakes and neglect by government. Blackouts, planned or unexpected, occur most days in dusty Tehran, even, ironically, at the US embassy, once the nerve centre of the defeated imperialists.
The president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is disarmingly open about the scale of the crisis. “There is currently a problem with water, electricity and gas. There is no water behind the dams. The wells beneath our feet are also running dry. Those who claim there is water should come and tell us where this water is …”
For five years, Iran has been struggling with a drought that, experts agree, has been made far more severe by climate change. Steadily dropping levels of rainfall – a sweltering Tehran had only 158mm of rainfall last year, 42% less than the long term average – have combined with excessive consumption, particularly in agriculture, plus mass unauthorised extraction of groundwater and a fondness for prestigious but faulty engineering projects.
The water is running frighteningly low and this summer no fewer than 19 of Iran’s dams had only between 3 and 15 % of their water left. The capital’s three dams – Lar, Malu and Amir Kabir – were at critical levels by September, but appeals to the citizens of Tehran to cut their water consumption by 25% have not yet worked, so now there are plans to halt all construction work in the city for two years. Iran is now on the brink of the taps running dry.