What to Do When the Taps Run Dry?
Note from the Editor by Paul Barker
If you forgot to celebrate the Persian harvest festival, Jashn-e Mehregan, this year perhaps you can add a pomegranate and apple salad to your American Thanksgiving celebration. That being said, climate change is making it harder to celebrate harvests – and get water out of urban taps in Iran. For thousands of years the people inhabiting Iranian plateau have evolved ingenious water management systems to support dynamic civilizations around the mountain ranges that define their geography, leaving sparsely populated the desert plains in the center. As long as the mountains catch and retain sufficient snow in the winters, life is sustainable. Climate change is driven by the laws of physics and chemistry, paying no heed to whatever human suffering may inevitably follow. It is now inflicting harsh new realities on the farmers, nomads and city dwellers of Iran. Drought is now in its fifth and most severe year. Current snow levels in Iran are 98.6% lower than last year. The reservoir behind the Karaj dam has drained down to the Dead Zone where it cannot provide water downstream and the four other reservoirs serving Tehran are not far behind. Groundwater has been so over-pumped for decades that buildings and infrastructure are subsiding. There is no near-term viable option for relocating Tehran’s 14 million people. Measures to conserve and reuse water supplies should have been implemented decades ago. Iran’s water shortage is an unavoidable crisis for the government. Nonetheless other crises facing Iran remain unresolved and threatening.
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