Scott N. Romaniuk & Erzsébet N. Rózsa & László Csicsmann
Drought cycles are becoming more frequent and severe; this past autumn marked one of the driest periods in the last 20 years in contemporary Iranian history. For decades, national development policies assumed that engineering and extraction could overcome environmental limits. Today, those limits are reasserting themselves, and shortages are moving from rural peripheries into major cities, placing pressure on a political system already managing numerous economic, social, and national security challenges. Rising scarcity underscores the multifaceted ways in which water intersects with livelihoods, public trust, and national security, creating pressures that extend from rural communities to urban centers and shaping Iran’s domestic and regional policies.
These long-term pressures are not solely the product of climate variability. They reflect cumulative policy decisions, infrastructure choices, and social priorities that have consistently prioritized water-intensive agriculture, urban expansion, and industrial development. Iran’s national security is no longer defined solely by armies, weapons, or borders—it now hinges on something far more fundamental: water. Understanding these drivers is crucial to grasping how the country arrived at its current crisis, where domestic vulnerabilities intertwine with mounting regional tensions over shared water resources.
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