TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The parched landscape around Iran’s capital, stressed by a 30-year drought and hollowed by excessive water pumping, has begun to sink dramatically.
It can be seen by satellite and on foot around Tehran.
Officials warn that what they call land subsidence poses a grave danger to a country where protests over water scarcity already have seen violence.
Tehran sits 1,200 meters — about 3,900 feet — above sea level against the Alborz Mountains on a plateau, and has rapidly grown over the last 100 years to a sprawling city of 13 million people in its metropolitan area.
All those people have put incredible pressure on water resources on a semi-arid plateau in a country that saw only 171 millimeters, about 6.7 inches, of rain last year.
