Chasing the last drops of water

The dried-out Zayanderud riverbed in Isfahan, Iran. Lawmakers are warning that one province will run out within three months, and the shortage is inflaming tensions with the country’s neighbours. — ©2023 The New York Times Company

SUMMER has come to Sistan and Baluchistan province, an impoverished fragment of chapped earth and shimmering heat in Iran’s southeast corner, and all people there can talk about is how to get water.

For weeks now, taps in cities like Zahedan have yielded nothing but a salty, weakening trickle. In the villages that water pipes have never reached, the few residents who remain say people can barely find enough water to do the laundry or bathe themselves, let alone fish, farm or sustain livestock.