After Ruining a Treasured Water Resource, Iran Is Drying Up
A dried riverbed in Neyshabur, Iran. Morteza Aminoroayayi / Middle East Images via AFP via Getty Images More than international sanctions, more than its stifling theocracy, more than recent bombardment by Israel and the U.S. — Iran’s greatest current existential crisis is what hydrologists are calling its rapidly approaching “water bankruptcy.” It is a crisis that has a sad origin, they say: the destruction and abandonment of tens of thousands of ancient tunnels for sustainably tapping underground water, known as qanats, that were once the envy of the arid world. But calls for the Iranian government to restore qanats and recharge the underground water reserves that once sustained them are falling on deaf ears.After a fifth year of extreme drought, Iran’s…
