Prolonged drought and the halt to permanent flows in the Zayandeh-Roud river have driven land subsidence and the Gavkhouni wetland toward an apparent point of no return, raising risks to Isfahan’s drinking-water supply, a provincial environmental official said.
“The continued drying and the cut in permanent flows have brought land subsidence and the death of Gavkhouni to a point of no return and even put drinking water on the threshold of threat,” said Dariush Golalizadeh, the provincial environment department chief.
“The Zayandeh-Roud played a key role in recharging aquifers and preventing subsidence. With multi-year drought and sharply reduced inflows, alongside heavier pumping from wells and wastewater use, subsidence has intensified alarmingly.”
Golalizadeh said the internationally listed Gavkhouni wetland downstream of Isfahan is turning into a dust hotspot. “When the wetland falls apart, it means there are serious problems in water and land management above it.”
He linked the ecological stress to livelihoods, saying orchards, urban green spaces and farmers have been hit across the basin. Authorities are now working on support programs for Isfahan’s eastern districts to soften the blow to agriculture, he said.
The official urged emergency measures to keep minimum flows to the river and wetland.
“At present, because of the sharp drop in river yield, drinking water is under threat,” he said. “We are looking to other sources, but rising temperatures and drought have cut inflows to a minimum.”
The US dollar, which traded at about 140,000 rials in 2018, has risen roughly eight-fold since Donald Trump restored US sanctions on Iran seven years ago.
The current dollar rate of 1.16 million rials is just shy of the all-time high of 1.17 million recorded on September 30.
The reimposition of UN sanctions in September deepened the currency shock, Parliamentarian Valiollah Bayati said last month. Addressing President Masoud Pezeshkian, Bayati said public anxiety was mounting.
The sanctions were restored 30 days after Britain, France and Germany triggered the so-called snapback mechanism under the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, citing Iran's failure to comply with its nuclear obligations.
The move restored UN penalties previously suspended under the resolution, tightening external constraints on Iran’s economy.
Farid Mousavi, a member of parliament’s economic committee, warned earlier this month that the currency rise could accelerate in coming weeks. “With inflation continuing at this pace, a 1.3 million-rial dollar rate in winter is not far-fetched."
Official figures show food costs up more than 66 percent over the past year, with bread and grains up 100 percent, fruit and nuts 108 percent, and vegetables almost 69 percent.
The central bank’s latest report also indicates a record surge in capital flight during the spring, underscoring dwindling market confidence.
Rising fuel costs compound volatility
The currency rise follows a domestic fuel-price increase that legislators warn will spill into transport and retail markets.
Mohsen Biglari, secretary of parliament’s budget committee, told the Rouydad24 outlet that higher gasoline costs would influence prices across sectors. “If people have to buy fifty-thousand-rial gasoline, it will certainly affect other goods and services."
The government’s new fuel pricing system, announced on Tuesday, introduces a third rate of 50,000 rials per liter (4.4 cents per the free market rate) for drivers refueling without smart rationing cards or beyond their quota, while keeping existing 15,000- and 30,000-rial rates ((1.3 and 2.6 cents, respectively).
The accelerating dollar, mounting household costs, and weakening investor sentiment together signal a deepening inflationary cycle likely to shape Iran’s economic trajectory in the months ahead.
The outlet’s journalists observed women and girls moving openly through public spaces without headscarves, a practice once met with immediate censure under years of tight enforcement. Along northern Tehran’s Vali-e Asr Street, uncovered hair was common among women of all ages.
“When I moved to Iran in 1999, letting a single strand of hair show would immediately prompt someone to tell me to tuck it back under my headscarf out of fear of the morality police taking me away,” Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told AP. “To see where Iran is today feels unimaginable: Women and girls openly defying mandatory hijab.”
“Authorities are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers across the country and worry that if they crack down – at a delicate time marked by power blackouts, water shortages, and a rotten economy – they could spur Iranians to return to the streets,” Dagres added.
Scenes around Tajrish Square, north of Tehran, according to the report, showed schoolgirls shedding their headscarves immediately after class and women shopping uncovered at the bazaar as police officers stood by.
“All of my life I had to wear hijab… at school, at university, everywhere in public,” an Iranian woman who recently emigrated to Canada told AP. “I always tried to follow the rules but it made me feel a lack of confidence… because I wore the hijab and I didn’t believe in that.”
Dissatisfaction acknowledged at the top
Iran’s rulers have long relied on strict hijab enforcement by police and Basij forces, with only limited periods of relaxed oversight. The current hesitation comes amid persistent power cuts, water shortages and a weakened economy, all of which risk fueling further anger, the report added.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has so far avoided directly addressing the issue since the year’s war with Israel and US strikes on nuclear sites.
The protests that erupted after the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman detained by the morality police for allegedly violating Iran’s veiling rules, marked a turning point. Her death sparked some of the largest demonstrations in decades, with women publicly removing or burning their headscarves in defiance of the compulsory veiling law.
AP cited comments by President Masoud Pezeshkian’s social affairs adviser Mohammad-Javad Javadi-Yeganeh, who said unpublished polling by the Iranian Students Polling Agency shows widespread public discontent. The findings align with low turnout in last year’s presidential vote and continuing frustration over inflation, currency volatility and unemployment.
“We are answerable since we cannot provide services to people,” Pezeshkian said recently.
Elias Hazrati, head of the Pezeshkian administration’s information council, confirmed earlier this week that Khamenei had sent directives on hijab enforcement to the government, describing opponents of mandatory hijab as “a small number of people” engaged in “social disorder.” Days earlier, Pezeshkian told the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution that state bodies “must adhere to national laws and norms” on hijab.
Judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei also instructed prosecutors to act against what he called “organized, foreign-linked” groups involved in “social disorder.”
For Iranians worn down by years of sanctions, economic stagnation and the fear of renewed conflict, uncertainty persists.
“Sometimes that fear is with me,” the woman in Canada said. “Sometimes when I’m behind the wheel, I try to find my headscarf on my head. That fear is still with me.”
