Drastic water shortages and air pollution are fuelling Iran’s protests
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“Iran is experiencing not one environmental crisis but the convergence of several: water shortages, land subsidence, air pollution and energy failure. All added together, life is a struggle for survival.”
This is the situation inside Iran as described by Nima Shokri, an environmental engineer who works on global challenges related to the environment. Shokri highlights a rarely discussed factor in relation to this year’s massive protests across Iran: the severe challenges Iranians are struggling with every day, affecting their ability to simply carry on living.
The air is polluted, the water is drying out and the land collapsing. Many Iranian farmers have been forced to give up their homes and land, and flee to the edges of cities in the hope of just surviving. Their land is cracking and disappearing, and it is no longer possible to grow crops or keep animals alive.
City dwellers are struggling with major water shortages too. On top of that extremely high air pollution levels are forcing hospitals and schools to close, and rising numbers of medical cases are being linked to bad air.
Living in that environment, it’s no wonder that people feel desperate. As Shokri has pointed out many centres of the massive protests seen in Iran in the past few weeks, where an estimated 30,000 people have been killed, are in places where people are dealing with the most severe environmental challenges.
Read more: Iran's biggest centres of protest are also experiencing extreme pollution and water shortages
Of course, these air, land and water issues are not the only reason why thousands of people are on the streets of this country, where they must live with the decisions of a government that wants to decide who is allowed to walk on the streets and what people, women especially, are allowed to wear.
Struggle for basics
But these basics of having clean water and air that you can breathe without damaging your health are impossible for anyone to ignore.
These conditions haven’t just happened without human intervention. Iran’s leaders have made policy choices over the years that have escalated the environmental challenges that many around the world are seeing, such as reduced rainfall. Water intensive agriculture has been encouraged, groundwater has been excessively pumped out, heavy fuel used, and environmental regulation has been weak.
As environmental journalist Sanam Mahoozi and chemical engineer Salome M.S. Shokri-Kuehni wrote, along with Shokri, a few weeks ago, early in January 2026 Iran’s capital ranked as the most polluted city in the world.
Local media were reporting more than 350 deaths linked to worsening air quality over ten days during December 2025. And studies indicate that more than 59,000 Iranians die prematurely every year from air pollution-related illnesses.
The Iranian government has failed to protect its people from these escalating crises. In fact, as the three authors argue, its decisions has put them at more risk. And these day-to-day survival issues along with escalating political repression and economic fragility has left desperate people desperate for change, and a country on the edge of collapse.
Iran is not the only country that is experiencing a water crisis that its government hasn’t shown signs of knowing how to manage, and where people are struggling to cope. Mexicans are living with conditions caused by years of drought. Reservoirs that used to supply millions with water are drying up. Some people report spending a quarter of their income on water, while others walk 30 minutes to even find a supply.
Water shortages are projected to affect 30 of 32 Mexican states by the year 2050, Natasha Lindstaedt, a professor of government at the University of Essex who researches human security and climate change, writes. And Mexico’s water crisis is compounded by being forced to send part of its water supply to the US due to a just over 80-year-old agreement between the two countries.
Read more: Mexico and US look for new deal in long-running battle over 80-year old water treaty
Global crisis
About four billion people – nearly half the global population – live with severe water scarcity for at least one month a year. They are going without access to sufficient water to meet all of their needs, writes Kaveh Madani, director of the Institute for Water, Environment and Health at United Nations University and the author of a new report by UN scientists on water scarcity.
The consequences of water deficit are being seen around the world: dry reservoirs, sinking cities, crop failures, water rationing and more frequent wildfires and dust storms.
One massive consequence of short-term water policies, often related to agriculture, is subsidence. And as Madani explains when groundwater is overpumped, the underground structure, which holds water almost like a sponge, can collapse. And it can be impossible for it to recover.
Read more: The world is in water bankruptcy, UN scientists report – here’s what that means
In Mexico City, land is sinking by about 25cm per year. In Iran, subsidence is up to 30cm per year, affecting areas where around 14 million people live, more than one-fifth of the population.
The UN report sets out a drastic situation: the world is starting to experience water bankruptcy. This is beyond a crisis. It is long term condition, where cities or regions use more water than nature can reliably replace, where the damage to the environment is so catastrophic that it becomes almost impossible hard to reverse.
And while water becomes such a valuable resource, tension between those who have it and those who don’t is only going to increase.
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