Environment

Iranwire – With the sharp decline in rainfall in Iran, officials in the country’s various water departments are reporting record-breaking low reserves and issuing warnings about the need to save water. Is this level of drought genuinely unexpected in Iran, or do officials bear a degree of responsibility for the ensuing water crisis? What overall impact will the decrease in …

VOA – A magnitude 5.9 earthquake on Sunday struck Iran’s southern province of Bushehr, where a nuclear power plant is located, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, state television reported. A government official told Reuters that there were no reports of damage at the Bushehr nuclear complex. “The quake hit the Bandar Gonaveh area in the …

Iranwire – Due to a decline in rainfall this year, between 220 and 250 Iranian cities will face water shortages in the summer of 2021, according to the Water and Wastewater Company of Iran. The latest Energy Ministry statistics show that the amount of rainfall in Iran in 2020-2021 decreased by 38 percent compared to last year, and by 29 …

VOA – Israel accused Iran on Wednesday of being linked to a recent oil spill off its shores that caused major ecological damage, calling the incident environmental terrorism. The spill was caused by an oil tanker that was carrying pirated cargo from Iran to Syria last month, Israeli Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel said. The vessel sailed through the Persian …

Payvandnews – Some 10,000 bodies of lifeless migratory birds that died as a result of botulism poisoning have been found so far around the Miankaleh peninsula and Gorgan Bay, located in the extreme south-eastern part of the Caspian Sea.  Botulism disease, which for the second consecutive year has caused the death of a large number of migratory birds in Miankaleh and Gorgan …

RFL/RE – An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.6 shook southwest Iran near the town of Sisakht late on February 17, with at least 40 people injured, Iranian media reported. Iranian state TV quoted an official in the region as saying, “People in Sisakht and the town of Yasuj left their homes in panic. Water and electricity have been cut …

Payvandnews – A rise in temperature of the water has had a negative effect on the ecosystem so that 90 percent of coral reefs in this region have been bleached and are dying, IRNA quoted Davood Mirshekar, deputy chief of the Department of Environment for marine ecosystems, as saying on Wednesday. Monitoring coral reefs in the Persian Gulf and the …

Iranwire – While a recent surge in air pollution levels was putting people’s health in Tehran and other Iranian cities in jeopardy, the mother of a nine-year-old girl in London, UK proved in court that her daughter’s death had been directly related to air pollution. Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, whose daughter Ella died in 2013 after a severe asthma attack, embarked on …

RFL/RE – Iranian authorities are blaming power outages and worsening air pollution in cities across the country on the energy drain caused by bitcoin mining operations. The cryptocurrency farms are a huge energy drain because they use banks of high-powered computers to try to unlock complex numerical puzzles related to international financial transactions. When successful, bitcoin miners create units of …

​Al-Monitor – Thick and stubborn clouds of hazardous emissions have blanketed the Iranian capital, Tehran, for four weeks in a row, only adding to a long list of challenges residents in the megacity are grappling with on a daily basis. Characterized by its frustrating traffic jams, which have been exacerbated by a poor public transportation infrastructure and an unregulated population …