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November 21, 2025<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Capital Is Moving. The Reason Is an Ecological Catastrophe<\/p>\n
The decision to move Iran\u2019s capital is partly driven by climate change, but experts say decades of human error and action are also to blame<\/p>\n
By Humberto Basilio edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n A dry water feature in Tehran on November 9, 2025.<\/p>\n ATTA KENARE\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Amid a deepening ecological crisis and acute water shortage, Tehran can no longer remain the capital of Iran, the country\u2019s president has said.<\/p>\n The situation in Tehran is the result of \u201ca perfect storm of climate change and corruption,\u201d says Michael Rubin, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.<\/p>\n \u201cWe no longer have a choice,\u201d said Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian during a speech on Thursday.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Instead Iranian officials are considering moving the capital to the country\u2019s southern coast. But experts say the proposal does not change the reality for the nearly 10 million people who live in Tehran and are now suffering the consequences of a decades-long decline in water supply.<\/p>\n Since at least 2008, scientists have warned that unchecked groundwater pumping for the city and for agriculture was rapidly draining the country\u2019s aquifers. The overuse did not just deplete underground reserves\u2014it destroyed them, as the land compressed and sank irreversibly. One recent study found that Iran\u2019s central plateau, where most of the country\u2019s 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 Dar\u00edo Solano, a geoscientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who was not involved with the study.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw this coming,\u201d Solano says.<\/p>\n Other major cities such as Cape Town, South Africa, Mexico City and Jakarta, Indonesia, as well as parts of California, are also facing day zero scenarios as they sink and run out of water.<\/p>\n This is not the first time Iran\u2019s capital has moved. Over the centuries, it has shifted many times, from Tabriz to Isfahan to Shiraz. Some of these former capitals still thrive while others exist only as ruins, Rubin says. But this marks the first time the Iranian government has moved the capital because of an ecological catastrophe.<\/p>\n Yet, Rubin says, \u201cit would be a mistake to look at this only through the lens of climate change.\u201d Water, land, and wastewater mismanagement and corruption have made the crisis worse, he says. If the capital moves to the remote Makran coast in the south, that could cost more than $100 billion. The region is known for its harsh climate and difficult terrain, and some experts have doubts about its viability as a national center. Relocating a capital is often driven more by politics than by environmental concerns, says Linda Shi, a social scientist and urban planner at Cornell University. \u201cClimate change is not the thing that is causing it, but it is a convenient factor to blame in order to avoid taking responsibility\u201d for poor political decisions, she says.<\/p>\n Editor\u2019s Note (11\/21\/25): This article was edited after posting to correct the date of Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian\u2019s quoted statement and the link to the recent study on the sinking of Iran\u2019s central plateau.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" November 21, 2025 2 min read Iran\u2019s Capital Is Moving. The Reason Is an Ecological Catastrophe The decision to move Iran\u2019s capital is partly driven by climate change, but experts say decades of human error and action are also to blame By Humberto Basilio edited by Claire Cameron A dry water feature in Tehran on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[3044,3146,218,1294,2642,1183],"class_list":{"0":"post-34811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-capital","9":"tag-forcing","10":"tag-irans","11":"tag-move","12":"tag-run","13":"tag-water"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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