Iranians are running out of water and breathing some of the world’s worst air, environmental emergencies that critics say spotlight the mismanagement driving public anger at the theocratic regime.
“If I want to use one word, it’s mismanagement,” Hamid Pouran, an environmental technology researcher based in the UK, said. The country is now in its sixth consecutive year of a severe drought. In November, President Masoud Pezeshkian said relocating the capital from Tehran to the south near the Persian Gulf might be necessary — a move critics say will not address root causes.
While Iran’s climate is arid with limited rainfall and rugged terrain, researchers blame much of the ecological collapse on corruption and short-term policies. Those failings have helped propel thousands into the streets in recent weeks, often met with violent repression. Global warming has also magnified the problem, markedly increasing drought risk.
Almost all of Iran’s water is consumed by agriculture. Cut off from broad global trade, the state sought food self-sufficiency and allowed farmers to drill extensively into aquifers. There are roughly twice as many wells as two decades ago; research indicates more than 300 of 609 aquifers are in critical condition, and about 70% of total water demand lies in areas with overdrawn groundwater.
“About 10 years ago, the wells dried up because all the aquifers are now exhausted, and you have acres and acres and acres of pistachio plantations that have become black coal,” said Houchang Chehabi, a historian at Boston University. Iran lacks the water to reliably produce key crops such as wheat, barley, rice and corn.
Over-pumping aquifers prevents natural replenishment and causes land subsidence. Roughly 3.5% of Iran has sunk, damaging roads, buildings and pipelines. At the same time, a decades-long push to build hundreds of dams has left many reservoirs largely empty; more than half of total dam capacity installed over the past 20 years remains underfilled. Those projects have disrupted river flows and increased evaporation. Analysts say some dams were sited without proper feasibility studies and were built where economic or political interests, rather than environmental logic, dictated.
The northwest’s Lake Urmia, once the Middle East’s largest salt lake, has nearly dried after scores of upstream dams and water diversions. About one-third of the population now lives in water-stressed areas. Lower yields and rising food prices have pushed farmers toward cities, swelling urban water demand. Water shortages have sparked protests before — in 2021 the “Uprising of the Thirsty” led to deaths and hundreds of arrests — and “water, electricity, life — our absolute rights” has become a cry at recent demonstrations.
Air pollution compounds the crisis. Nearly 80% of Iranians live in urban areas where air quality is poor; Iranian data estimate almost 60,000 deaths from toxic air in 2024, about 161 per day. Schools and offices sometimes close on bad days, and Tehran often ranks among the world’s most polluted cities.
Vehicles are the main source of Tehran’s pollution: low-quality fuels, outdated car technology and a protected market mean manufacturers have little incentive to make cleaner cars. “Car producers in Iran can produce better cars when it comes to cleaner air, but they get away with it because the market is closed,” said Alex Vatanka, who founded the Iran program at the Middle East Institute. Winter power generation using mazut, a heavy petroleum residue, adds to toxic emissions. As lakes and rivers dry, exposed beds produce dust and sand that wind carries across regions. Despite Tehran’s surrounding mountains, poor governance and policy choices are the main drivers of its dirty air.
There are practical remedies, but implementing them has proved difficult. Large-scale fixes like desalination pipelines from the Persian Gulf have been proposed, but critics argue such projects sidestep deeper problems. Experts urge long-term measures: a crash program to capture and reuse municipal wastewater, reforming agriculture away from water-intensive crops, and repairing qanats — ancient underground channels that once sustainably delivered groundwater but are collapsing after decades of over-pumping.
Iran also has untapped renewable potential. Two-thirds of the country get sun about 300 days a year, yet renewables supplied less than 4% of electricity in a 2022 IRENA report. Despite vast oil and gas reserves — Iran has among the world’s largest oil endowments — the country routinely experiences blackouts and gas shortages because of underinvestment, aging infrastructure and a system of political patronage. “The opportunities are immense for Iran, but as long as you don’t have a vision and a serious approach to economic development, then you are going to miss opportunities like solar and wind,” Vatanka said. He added that national focus and coherent economic planning are required to seize them.
Environmental researchers and activists say climate change aggravates existing faults, but the core failures are governance, planning and corruption. Without political will to carry out structural reforms — from water management and agricultural policy to cleaner fuels, vehicle standards and renewable investment — Iran’s environmental crises are likely to deepen, with ongoing social and political consequences.
Edited by: Tamsin Walker