Climate change isn’t a whisper on the wind in Iran; it’s a deafening roar.
Faezeh Ghasemi
This year’s winter, the warmest and driest in Tehran’s memory, is a stark testament to that. From March to December 2023, the city basked in a mere nine days of clear skies. And the future whispers ominous warnings.
Tehran, gasping for breath beneath a smog-choked sky, is an “alarming prophecy” of what’s to come for Iran’s 85 million people. But the suffering isn’t confined to megacities like Tehran. Even idyllic havens like Taleqan, nestled in the Alborz Mountains, choke under the smog’s suffocating grip. As a result, climate justice is now being served in Iran! , as climate change is in every corner of the country.
The consequences are dire. In 2023, the Iranian Ministry of Health attributed a staggering 20,000 deaths to air pollution alone. This isn’t just a statistic; it’s a mother gasping for air, a child’s lungs choked with soot, a future stolen by the very air we breathe.
The once snow-capped peak of Mount Damavand, Tehran’s majestic sentinel, stands defiantly bare, a stark symbol of a climate in crisis. social media users in Iran’s northwest have been left stunned and incredulous by the stark contrast between the heavy snowstorms and downpours occurring across the border and their own region’s parched conditions. This isn’t a distant dystopian future; It’s the grim reality that the people of Iran are feeling right now.
The numbers paint a horrifying picture. As written by water-news.ir, close to the Ministry of Energy, The Karkheh and western border rivers, lifeblood arteries of the land, have shrunk by a bone-chilling 38% compared to their usual flow. The iconic Zayandeh-Rud, once a shimmering ribbon of life, has dwindled by 23%, while Lake Urmia, in the northwest, mourns a 17% decline in its watery embrace.
…But what is real Story?
The primary driver behind these changes is unsustainable development practices. Rarely can one witness such destructive environmental forces at play. Geographically, central Iran has been characterized by warmth and aridity, while coastal areas have enjoyed a Mediterranean climate with lush vegetation, and the western regions have been mountainous. For thousands of years, the population of Iran, which has been less than 20 million, has thrived in this diverse ecosystem and has been acutely aware of the country’s water scarcity. The construction of qanats, an Iranian innovation to combat drought, has played a crucial role even in the harshest climatic conditions. In Yazd, people utilized “badgirs” (wind catchers), an ingenious cooling device, to cope with the heat. However, all these traditional solutions have been disregarded without acknowledging Iran’s specific needs.
Hundreds of qanats, some with centuries of history, have been destroyed throughout the country. The magnificent Iranian water engineering marvel, the Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System, has been neglected, and instead, a path of economic and social development has been pursued over the past fifty years, without due consideration for the future, resulting in the degradation of Iran’s ecosystems. Unregulated well drilling (Iran has approximately 300,000 unauthorized wells and 500,000 authorized ones.), uncontrolled resource transfers between different regions, and large-scale permits granted to farmers for water-intensive crops like watermelons have contributed to severe soil erosion in Iran and a critical water crisis in the country. According to Isa Kalantari, the head of the Environmental Protection Organization, out of the 200 billion cubic meters of groundwater historically available in Iran’s underground aquifers, only 170 billion cubic meters have been extracted in recent decades, pushing the nation to the brink of widespread water scarcity. This is evident in the rapid drying of certain lakes, including Lake Urmia (ارومیه) and Lake Hamoun (هامون), as well as the decline of Iran’s wetlands.
Furthermore, Iran witnesses an alarming rise in deforestation, threatening not only its ancient Hyrcanian forests in the north but also encroaching upon the western regions. Controversial road projects and the lucrative practice of burning forest land for villa development cast a dark shadow over these verdant treasures. Statistics from environmental authorities paint a stark picture: a staggering 1.5 million hectares of Hyrcanian forests have vanished in the past 15 years.
The government’s insistence on achieving “self-sufficiency in the agricultural sector” and destructive industries has resulted in an environmental catastrophe. This issue, coupled with the neglect of Iran’s population growth and extensive water scarcity, has led to the drying up of Iran’s water resources in recent years, posing a threat to ancient cities like Isfahan. In Isfahan, non-standard agriculture and large-scale industries such as Isfahan Steel have caused the Zayandehrud River to almost run dry, ancient city bridges to deteriorate slowly, and some neighborhoods to become uninhabited due to land subsidence. The situation in Isfahan, once known as the half of the world, has now reached a point where some believe that with the current trend, the city will be uninhabitable in a decade or two.
What happens to Iranian Community?
While government programs paint a rosy picture of prosperity for Iran’s burgeoning population of over 120 million, experts are painting a far bleaker reality. A looming drought, choking air pollution that blankets nearly every province, and a relentless rise in temperatures – twice the global average – are wreaking havoc on soil fertility, crippling agriculture, unleashing devastating floods, and exacerbating respiratory ailments. These devastating environmental factors are now altering the country’s population dynamics, triggering shifts in migration patterns.
The depopulation of certain regions in Iran, mostly in Sistan and Baluchestan province, has burdened the major cities of the country with a large population influx. Driven by hardship, more than 10,000 residents of Zabol, a city of 150,000 in southeast Iran, have migrate in the first three months of 2023, seeking better place in northern cities.
The northern and green provinces of Iran have witnessed an influx of laborers from less developed cities in the south. More developed cities such as Semnan, which have better industrial development and climatic conditions, are rapidly expanding due to the influx of migrants from other cities. According to the governor of Semnan province, in 2015, 24,000 people migrated to the province, and this number reached 34,000 in 2019, with the increasing trend continuing to this day. On the other hand, in Zahedan and Zabol in the southeast and Khuzestan in the southwest of the country, poor air quality, dust storms, adverse weather conditions, and devastating floods force people to migrate.
Thus, both quantitatively and qualitatively, migrations have changed. Migration is no longer from less industrialized areas to more industrialized ones but rather from drier regions to more fertile ones, and in this regard, some of Iran’s former vibrant metropolises like Isfahan are no longer the destinations for mass migration.
Some climate migrations are permanent, and this can permanently change the demographic pattern of recipient provinces. This issue will not only have cultural and social implications given the ethnic and religious diversity in Iran but also create new internal and external security challenges for the country due to the depopulation of certain regions in Iran and the high population density in others. The influx of migrants to major cities in Iran has become a source of cultural clashes, the emergence of new subcultures, and new social problems. While migration, if it occurs slowly and through a natural process, can facilitate integration and adaptation between the host and migrant society, mass migrations usually do not create such opportunities.
According to predictions by the Secretary of Forced Migration Department at the Iranian Migration Observatory, with the increasing consequences of climate change, especially gradual phenomena like drought, the statistics of internal migrations in Iran and even beyond the country’s borders will intensify in the coming years.
The continuation of the current trend, driven by policymakers’ lack of motivation to combat pervasive corruption in the environmental sector and their persistence in implementing environmentally destructive growth and development policies, which can be interpreted as an exploitation of Iran’s natural resources, has been exacerbated by the ongoing burden of international sanctions. These factors, combined with the lack of effective measures to address climate change and preserve the environment, have significantly contributed to the challenges faced by Iran, including the disruption of ecosystems, population displacements, and social and political tensions.
This predicament calls for a vivid exploration of the future. Will the resilient spirit of the Iranian people enable them to navigate the complexities of a changing landscape? How will communities, once thriving in harmony with nature, confront the harsh realities of a depleted environment? These questions resonate with urgency as Iran’s ecological decline poses not only local ramifications but also reverberates on a regional and international scale.
Faezeh Ghasemi is PhD in International Relations and Middle East expert, senior researcher with over 10 years of experience in Identity and Non-State Actors in MENA Studies.
GSPI does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of GSPI, its staff, or its trustees.
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