Iranians, and many experts, blame<\/a> the government, one of the world\u2019s most repressive regimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Environmental issues tie \u201cinto all the other grievances that activists and citizens and protesters have over economic and political issues,\u201d said Eric Lob, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Program and an associate professor at Florida International University. \u201cIt\u2019s all interconnected.\u201d<\/p>\n The human cost is staggering. Crumbling infrastructure, poorly designed irrigation systems and overdrawn aquifers have left farmers unable to plant crops and cities forced to ration supplies. Tens of thousands of people, including children, die prematurely each year from severe air and water pollution. Water shortages and power outages have shuttered businesses and left ordinary Iranians \u201cworried about whether they\u2019ll have enough water for drinking, bathing and cleaning,\u201d Lob said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Water stress has also become a source of political contention and a tool of political control, he said. Ethnic minority regions on Iran\u2019s periphery have seen their water supply diverted to central provinces dominated by the Persian majority, creating environmental \u201cwinners and losers\u201d and deepening resentment.<\/p>\n In Khuzestan, for example, national government policies have diverted water from the Karun River to central plateau provinces, reinforcing perceptions that Tehran prioritizes politically connected agriculture and industrial interests over local needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum, pointed to recent protests over water access in the Sistan and Baluchestan province, where demonstrators in 2023 marched with signs reading \u201cSistan is thirsty for water, Sistan is thirsty for attention.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese aren\u2019t separate from the current uprising,\u201d Roman said of past water protests. \u201cThey\u2019re precursors. Economic and environmental grievances are inseparable when your tap runs dry and your crops die.\u201d<\/p>\n Student groups have also identified Iran\u2019s ecological emergencies as driving unrest.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cToday, crises have piled up: poverty, inequality, class oppression, gender oppression, pressure on nations, water and environmental crises. All are direct products of a corrupt and worn-out system,\u201d student activists said in a December statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n The current protests, which erupted in late December, are the largest since 2022-2023. The government has responded with a communication blackout, cutting off internet<\/a> access nationwide, and violent crackdowns. Human rights organizations estimate thousands have been killed, and even more arrested. Iran has a history of executing protestors, often by public hanging.<\/p>\n Lob traced<\/a> a direct line between today\u2019s uprising and the regime\u2019s historical environmental failures.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since the 1979 revolution, he said, the government has used rural development projects to increase political legitimacy and popular support\u2014a process that gave rise to a \u201cwater mafia\u201d within the military establishment and the construction of hundreds of dams across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOrganizations close to the government and military were able to get contracts for these projects,\u201d Lob said. \u201cThe goal was power and profit-seeking over environmental protection and sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n Our nonprofit newsroom provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. Please donate now to support our work.<\/p>\n Donate Now<\/a> <\/p>\n This profit-driven mismanagement, compounded by climate change-driven drought<\/a>, international sanctions and limited investment, has led to land subsidence so severe that infrastructure such as roads and buildings is cracking. In Tehran, the crisis reached a breaking point this winter as reservoirs plummeted below 10 percent capacity.<\/p>\n \u201cThe state can no longer ignore the reality on the ground that people have sounded the alarm on for years,\u201d Lob said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Repression in Iran<\/p>\n Niloufar Bayani thought that tracking endangered wildlife would help save Iran\u2019s critically endangered Persian cheetah. Instead, it landed her in one of the country\u2019s most notorious prisons.<\/p>\n Inside Evin Prison, Bayani was held in solitary confinement and interrogated in 12-hour stretches as officials pressed her to confess to espionage. Interrogators threatened her with sexual assault, injections of hallucinogenic drugs and the arrest and torture of her 70-year-old parents, showing her images of torture devices to underscore their threats.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cScientists and activists have been repressed by the state because what they were saying was inconvenient.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Eric Lob, Carnegie Middle East Program nonresident scholar<\/p>\n After six years of detention, Bayani and seven of her colleagues were released in 2024\u2014the group\u2019s leader, Kavous Seyed-Emami, died in Evin Prison just weeks after his arrest.\u00a0<\/p>\n The detentions and death have become a stark example of how Iran\u2019s environment, and those working to protect it, are entangled with a repressive security state, even as the nation\u2019s environmental crises deepen.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cScientists and activists have been repressed by the state because what they were saying was inconvenient,\u201d Lob said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Among them is Kaveh Madani<\/a>, a water management expert forced into exile after his proposed solutions to Iran\u2019s water crisis, including reducing reliance on dams, threatened the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps\u2019 interests. In 2024, government security forces arrested poet Peyman Farahavar<\/a>, later sentencing him to death over his writing critical of environmental destruction. And last year, the crackdown expanded to include grassroots activists Sabah and Ramin Salehi, cousins who were arrested for their work protecting the Zagros forests.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese individuals were trying to do their jobs\u2014articulating the urgency of the issue and raising public awareness\u2014and they were punished for it,\u201d Lob said.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s environmental crises are not unique to the country, or even the region.<\/p>\n From neighboring Iraq to arid parts of the United States, including California and the Southwest, governments are grappling with dwindling water supplies and the political and socioeconomic consequences of how they are managed, Lob said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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