Since at least 2008, scientists have warned that unchecked groundwater pumping for the city and for agriculture was rapidly draining [Iran’s] aquifers. The overuse did not just deplete underground reserves—it destroyed them, as the land compressed and sank irreversibly. One recent study found that Iran’s central plateau, where most of the country’s aquifers are located, is sinking by more than 35 centimeters each year. As a result, the aquifers lose about 1.7 billion cubic meters of water annually as the ground is permanently crushed, leaving no space for underground water storage to recover, says Darío Solano, a geoscientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who was not involved with the study.
Some of the largest cities in the world, including São Paulo, Mexico City, Cape Town, Bangalore, and Tehran, are today facing critical water shortages. In the case of Tehran, the situation is so dire that Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian has publicly said that the country now has no choice but to move its capital from Tehran to the southern part of the country:
Amid a deepening ecological crisis and acute water shortage, Tehran can no longer remain the capital of Iran, the country’s president has said.
The situation in Tehran is the result of “a perfect storm of climate change and corruption,” says Michael Rubin, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.
“We no longer have a choice,” said Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian during a speech on Thursday.
This will be expensive, and it won’t solve all of the country’s problems, but forcing a bunch of people out of the city will help to relieve some of the localized pressures. Tehran has a population of nearly 10 million, and the metro region is estimated at over 14 million, making it the second largest city in the Middle East.
Of course, there’s a city-building lesson in all of this: If you’re at this stage of capitulation, it means you’re too late. Water scarcity is about physical scarcity, but it’s generally also a failure of governance, infrastructure, and demand management. Proactive adaptation is always cheaper, easier, and safer than waiting until the last minute to adopt desperate measures.
Cover photo by Behnam Norouzi on Unsplash
The Financial Times has some of the best charts/graphics that I have seen on the coronavirus and its impact. They're also free and regularly updated. Below is the cumulative number of deaths, by number of days since the 10th death (last updated March 23 at 21:00 GMT). I prefer this to the number of cases because it is more precise, though impacted by things like demographics. The number of cases is impacted by how good you are at testing. Some countries have been far better than others. And what we are continuing to learn is that lots of people were and are completely asymptomatic.
Seeing China (and Iran?) continue to flatten out is encouraging. (Note the logarithmic scale.)
The Financial Times published the following chart last night. It shows the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases around the world, across the number of days since the 100th case in that particular country. The message here is that most western countries appear to be on a similar trajectory. (The grey dotted line represents a 33% daily increase.) Whereas in Asia, and in particular Hong Kong and Singapore, they have seemingly managed to slow the spread.
Since at least 2008, scientists have warned that unchecked groundwater pumping for the city and for agriculture was rapidly draining [Iran’s] aquifers. The overuse did not just deplete underground reserves—it destroyed them, as the land compressed and sank irreversibly. One recent study found that Iran’s central plateau, where most of the country’s aquifers are located, is sinking by more than 35 centimeters each year. As a result, the aquifers lose about 1.7 billion cubic meters of water annually as the ground is permanently crushed, leaving no space for underground water storage to recover, says Darío Solano, a geoscientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who was not involved with the study.
Some of the largest cities in the world, including São Paulo, Mexico City, Cape Town, Bangalore, and Tehran, are today facing critical water shortages. In the case of Tehran, the situation is so dire that Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian has publicly said that the country now has no choice but to move its capital from Tehran to the southern part of the country:
Amid a deepening ecological crisis and acute water shortage, Tehran can no longer remain the capital of Iran, the country’s president has said.
The situation in Tehran is the result of “a perfect storm of climate change and corruption,” says Michael Rubin, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.
“We no longer have a choice,” said Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian during a speech on Thursday.
This will be expensive, and it won’t solve all of the country’s problems, but forcing a bunch of people out of the city will help to relieve some of the localized pressures. Tehran has a population of nearly 10 million, and the metro region is estimated at over 14 million, making it the second largest city in the Middle East.
Of course, there’s a city-building lesson in all of this: If you’re at this stage of capitulation, it means you’re too late. Water scarcity is about physical scarcity, but it’s generally also a failure of governance, infrastructure, and demand management. Proactive adaptation is always cheaper, easier, and safer than waiting until the last minute to adopt desperate measures.
Cover photo by Behnam Norouzi on Unsplash
The Financial Times has some of the best charts/graphics that I have seen on the coronavirus and its impact. They're also free and regularly updated. Below is the cumulative number of deaths, by number of days since the 10th death (last updated March 23 at 21:00 GMT). I prefer this to the number of cases because it is more precise, though impacted by things like demographics. The number of cases is impacted by how good you are at testing. Some countries have been far better than others. And what we are continuing to learn is that lots of people were and are completely asymptomatic.
Seeing China (and Iran?) continue to flatten out is encouraging. (Note the logarithmic scale.)
The Financial Times published the following chart last night. It shows the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases around the world, across the number of days since the 100th case in that particular country. The message here is that most western countries appear to be on a similar trajectory. (The grey dotted line represents a 33% daily increase.) Whereas in Asia, and in particular Hong Kong and Singapore, they have seemingly managed to slow the spread.
Here has been the impact to the Chinese economy. It's slowing coming back.
And here are traffic volumes around the world. This chart was published on Sunday, March 22. At that time, Tokyo looked to be largely business as usual.
Now, there are a number of possible explanations for the outliers; everything from stricter quarantine rules to more rigorous testing. There's also an argument that Hong Kong and Singapore were better prepared as a result of the SARS outbreak in 2002. (More on these explanations, here.) But the other factor at play seems to be climate.
A recent study (by Jingyuan Wang, Ke Tang, Kai Feng, and Weifeng Lv) has concluded that, like the flu, the transmission of COVID-19 appears to be significantly impacted by both air temperature and relative humidity. In their research, they looked at the reproductive number (R), or the severity of infectiousness, for all Chinese cities with more than 40 cases between January 21 to 23, 2020. (Large-scale government interventions began on January 24, 2020 and would have therefore skewed the numbers.)
What they found was that for every one degree Celsius increase in temperature and every one degree Celsius increase in relative humidity, the reproductive numbers drop by 0.0383 and 0.0224, respectively. Air temperature, in other words, has more of a positive impact on containing spread than relative humidity -- which feels right. That is also apparent when you look at the above charts. Take note of Korea, Iran, and Italy near the top left corner of the temperature chart.
If you'd like to download a full copy of the research paper, click here.
Here has been the impact to the Chinese economy. It's slowing coming back.
And here are traffic volumes around the world. This chart was published on Sunday, March 22. At that time, Tokyo looked to be largely business as usual.
Now, there are a number of possible explanations for the outliers; everything from stricter quarantine rules to more rigorous testing. There's also an argument that Hong Kong and Singapore were better prepared as a result of the SARS outbreak in 2002. (More on these explanations, here.) But the other factor at play seems to be climate.
A recent study (by Jingyuan Wang, Ke Tang, Kai Feng, and Weifeng Lv) has concluded that, like the flu, the transmission of COVID-19 appears to be significantly impacted by both air temperature and relative humidity. In their research, they looked at the reproductive number (R), or the severity of infectiousness, for all Chinese cities with more than 40 cases between January 21 to 23, 2020. (Large-scale government interventions began on January 24, 2020 and would have therefore skewed the numbers.)
What they found was that for every one degree Celsius increase in temperature and every one degree Celsius increase in relative humidity, the reproductive numbers drop by 0.0383 and 0.0224, respectively. Air temperature, in other words, has more of a positive impact on containing spread than relative humidity -- which feels right. That is also apparent when you look at the above charts. Take note of Korea, Iran, and Italy near the top left corner of the temperature chart.
If you'd like to download a full copy of the research paper, click here.
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