Crisis deepens as Iran’s protest hubs face toxic pollution and severe water shortages

DCM Editorial Summary: This story has been independently rewritten and summarised for DCM readers to highlight key developments relevant to the region. Original reporting by The Conversation, click this post to read the original article.

When you hear about Iran’s ongoing protests, you might think they’re only about inflation, corruption, or political repression. While those are true, there’s something deeper that often gets missed — a major environmental breakdown. Iran is not just dealing with isolated ecological problems but a full-scale collapse involving vanishing water supplies, land sinking dangerously, toxic air, and electricity failures. This isn’t just inconvenient — it’s making basic survival harder, which is why many people have taken to the streets.

From 2003 to 2019, Iran lost an alarming amount of groundwater — more than twice the country’s annual consumption. Excessive pumping has caused major land subsidence, with the ground sinking by up to 30 centimeters a year in heavily populated areas like Tehran, Isfahan, and Mashhad. This shrinkage has cracked buildings, damaged roads, and even threatened airports and heritage sites. At the same time, dry rivers and lakes generate dust and toxic salt storms that blow through nearby cities, making the air even more hazardous.

Air pollution is now a public health crisis, with power shortages forcing Iran to rely on dirty fuels. Schools and businesses close due to dangerous air quality levels, while hospitals report major spikes in respiratory and heart problems. The root cause, though, goes beyond weather or climate. Decades of poor governance, mismanaged subsidies, weak environmental oversight, and massive investments in foreign ideological campaigns have left Iran’s domestic infrastructure in ruins.

International sanctions have made things worse by cutting off access to green technology and better systems. But fundamentally, Iran’s leadership has deprioritized long-term environmental solutions in favor of short-term political goals. As a result, protests flare up in the very areas hardest hit by water shortages and land collapse — not just for political freedom, but because basic living conditions are vanishing.

What you’re looking at is not a temporary crisis that will disappear with rain or fuel price changes. It’s a deep, structural failure of the systems needed for life — water, air, land, and energy. When those collapse at once, people stop talking about reforms and start questioning whether the state can govern at all. Iran’s current unrest reflects not just public dissatisfaction, but a breakdown of the life-support systems a functioning country requires.