As the Islamic Republic of Iran confronts its most severe drought in half a century, authorities have turned to a controversial solution: cloud seeding. The operation, confirmed over the weekend by state media, marks a desperate effort to pull moisture from an increasingly unforgiving sky as water scarcity reaches critical levels across the country.
For the first time this water year, which began in September, Iranian aircraft carried out cloud seeding flights over the Urmia Lake basin—once home to the Middle East’s largest saltwater lake, now reduced to a cracked salt bed after years of overuse, mismanagement, and climate-driven drought.
According to the IRNA state news agency, additional operations are scheduled for East and West Azerbaijan provinces, with hopes of coaxing rainfall into regions suffering some of the lowest precipitation levels in living memory.
The science behind the method isn’t new: cloud seeding uses planes to disperse particles—commonly silver iodide or salt—into cloud systems to stimulate precipitation. Iran claims to have developed its own domestic seeding technology, following in the footsteps of regional neighbors like the UAE, which has employed the technique extensively.
The urgency is impossible to overstate. According to Iran’s meteorological authority, the nation has seen an 89% drop in rainfall compared to long-term averages. Nearly half the country’s provinces have gone months without a single drop of rain, and critical water reservoirs across the nation are nearing depletion.
Even Tehran, a sprawling capital of more than 9 million people, is now on edge. Rainfall in the city is at its lowest level in over a century, and earlier this month, newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a sobering warning: if rain does not arrive before winter, Tehran could face evacuation. He did not elaborate—but the implications are staggering.
As state television aired rare footage of snowfall dusting the Tochal Mountain near Tehran, it was a fleeting glimmer of hope in a climate that has become increasingly hostile. For many Iranians, snow and rain used to signal abundance. Now, they are rare, fleeting—and artificially engineered.
Lake Urmia, once a symbol of national pride and ecological wonder, stands as a cautionary tale. Years of dam construction, groundwater over-extraction, and drought have turned the massive body into a shell of its former self. Officials hope that cloud seeding might help reverse the trend—but scientists remain skeptical about its long-term efficacy, especially in such arid environments.
Iran’s worsening water crisis reflects a broader regional reality: the Middle East is warming faster than many parts of the world, and traditional water sources—rain-fed agriculture, snowmelt, and rivers—are becoming unreliable. Climate models warn that heatwaves, droughts, and water scarcity will intensify, forcing governments to choose between innovation, migration, or collapse.
