Iran begins cloud seeding to combat historic drought
BAHRAM/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
Iran has launched cloud-seeding operations to try to trigger rain as it battles one of its worst droughts in decades reported the BBC and other agencies on 16 November.
Authorities carried out a flight over the Lake Urmia basin, the country’s largest lake, now mostly dried up to disperse chemicals into clouds in a bid to stimulate rain.
According to Iran’s National Weather Forecasting Center, rainfall across the country has dropped by about 89% compared with long-term averages, making this “the driest autumn the country has experienced in 50 years.”
The cloud-seeding effort uses aircraft (and potentially drones) to release particles such as silver iodide or salt into existing clouds so that water droplets condense more readily and fall as rain.
The first flight of the current water year was carried out in the Urmia basin, and officials said they would expand seeding into the provinces of East and West Azerbaijan.
But the scale of the drought is stark. Reservoirs that feed major cities including Tehran are dangerously low. According to IRNA, water levels in key dams are at record lows.
In Tehran, the situation is particularly worrying. Hundreds of people have gathered at mosques to pray for rain, with clerics leading rain-seeking prayers as water shortages deepen.
President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned that unless rainfall improves, the authorities may have to ration water and, in a worst case scenario, evacuate parts of the capital.
Analysts and scientists caution, however, that cloud seeding is not a silver bullet. In favourable conditions, it might boost precipitation by 5–15%, but it cannot create rain out of nothing.
There are also concerns about environmental risks: some say repeated use of silver-based compounds could have toxic effects, while others warn that relying on such a technique could distract from long-term issues such as water mismanagement and over-extraction of groundwater.
Experts stress that cloud seeding cannot compensate for decades of declining water reserves, climate-driven aridity, and unsustainable usage.
Iran is placing its hopes in the skies and praying for relief.
BBC and Maghrebi.org
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