Water scarcity in the Middle East: focusing on Iran
Water scarcity in the Middle East is one of the pressing environmental challenges nowadays. A region characterized by arid climates and limited renewable resources. Among the Middle East countries, Iran suffers most the consequences of water scarcity due to political and environmental reasons. Iran has an estimated population of 80.4 million people and has the 18th largest population in the world. “Iran is the eighth carbon dioxide emitter after China, the United States of America, the European Union, India, the Russian Federation, Japan, and Canada, and was the fifth consumer of natural gas in the world (5.5% share in natural gas consumption) in 2015”
Iran is a dry country ranking 4th globally for extreme water scarcity, according to the World Resources Institute (Kuzma et. al 2023). It stands on the brink of day zero, which means that Iran’s water reserves will run out soon, if they won’t implement some creative solution.
Iran’s climate can be divided into two climatic zones. The arid zone is typical for the southern and eastern part of the country. With relatively warm summers and mild winters, the arid climate zone experiences low precipitation, frequent heat waves, and high annual temperature. The semi-arid zone can be found on Iran’s western and northern parts. In this territory of the country there are two important mountains, especially the Mount Elburz and Mount Zagros. The inhabitants of these regions are vulnerable, because their annual precipitation is much higher than the global average. The amount of precipitation reaches here 2000 mm per year, while in the central and eastern part it’s less than 50 mm (Fathian et. al 2020). This difference in precipitation can lead to extreme climate and weather conditions, for example floods in the mountain regions and serious droughts in the central and southern parts of the country occur.
Droughts can cause migration from rural areas into the cities. Migration into the cities can place them into a more vulnerable position than before. “Proportion of people living in urban areas reached 72.3% in 2013, which was about four times higher than it was in 2007” (World Health Organization & United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 2015).
Although several authors and researchers argue about the impact of climate change in Iran, they can agree on Iranian temperature change, which will increase by 0.5-1.5 and 1-5°C over the periods 2010 – 2039 and 2070 – 2010, respectively (Rahimi et. al 2019). Climate change in Iran can affect human health. Since the successive report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we can talk about the direct and indirect health effects of climate change (Groupe d’experts intergouvernemental sur l’évolution du climat 2007). Direct effects mean direct mortalities due to natural disasters, like floods or heat waves. Indirect effects mean non-communicable diseases (infectious diseases, food and water contamination) and social consequences (migration). In Iran both the direct and indirect effects play an important role.
The political aspect of the Iranian water scarcity is more complicated. Across Iran the rivers are vanishing, aquifers are drying up. These challenges can be attributed in part to the suboptimal management of river resources. In recent years, water allocation has increasingly favored certain agricultural and industrial initiatives, often influenced by broader policy priorities. Additionally, some government programs have proceeded with limited ecological oversight, underscoring the need for more sustainable and environmentally informed approaches. The consequences are terrible. The wetlands are drying up, farmland is collapsing, and the ground itself is sinking.
Socioeconomic and administrative challenges have played a role in increasing unemployment and prompting migration from southern and eastern Iran to the country’s western and northern regions. Iran’s water scarcity is mostly artificially caused by limited institutional capacity and management challenges, water in Iran has often been viewed more as an economic asset than as a finite resource.
In Iran, the interplay between informal networks and decision-making processes reflects the complexity of balancing diverse priorities. In some cases, this dynamic may present challenges to the consistent implementation of sustainable water management strategies, particularly given the country’s constrained water resources. At the hearth of this, is the IWPC, which refers to the Iran Water & Power Resources Development Company. This company is responsible for dams and inter-basin transfers. Their main project has been a frenzy of dam constructions. In 2012 Iran had 316 dams. By 2018 it jumped to 647 (Hoominfar and Radel 2020). Many of these dam projects have been shaped largely by political and economic priorities, with environmental considerations receiving comparatively less attention. The insane dam building projects led to droughts. The desperation of farmers to gain water advanced the over pumping of underground aquifers (Reza Talebi 2025). Agriculture is responsible for 90% of Iran’s water use, because the traditional irrigation methods demand huge amounts of water. Because of the western sanctions, the Iranian government implemented a significant political program, desires to grant food self-sufficiency for the country.
The Iranian government can manage the difficulties in many ways. In Jaber et. al (2018), the authors say that Iran made a National Development Plan for Spatial Planning, which divides the country into 9 zones. These zones are the following: (1) Northern Coast, (2) Azerbaijan, (3) Zagros, (4) Khuzestan, (5) Fars, (6) Southern Alborz, (7) Central, (8) Southern, (9) Khorasan. With this division the government can manage the environmental difficulties more easily. The following might be useful for this approach: integrating climate adaptation, supporting sustainable land use, promoting sustainable urban development, enabling renewable energy deployment, institutional coordination and policy integration.
Iran has also actively participated in many international environmental agreements, such as the Paris agreement, pledging to reduce emission by 4% by 2030 (Nasirian and Naddafi 2025). “The 21th Conference of Parties (COP21) in 2015 emphasized on countries’ acceptance to reduce carbon dioxide emission. During COP21, Iran announced that it would voluntarily try to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 4% until 2020 to reach 12%, subject to meaningful lift of unfair international sanctions and obtaining required funds” (Mousavi et. al 2020).
The water scarcity in Iran creates a very challenging situation for the Iranian government, but they try to adapt to the current circumstances by implementing creative and practical solutions. In the agricultural sector, crop rotation, cover cropping, integrated pest management and conservation are the key sustainable practices. For irrigation the government recently built five main water pipelines across the country. The pipelines transfer water from desalination facilities to the countryside. With these measures the Iranian government tries to minimize the effect of climate change and water scarcity.
Text: Péter Toronyi