Iran Starts Cloud Seeding as Water Crisis Forces Rationing
(Bloomberg) -- Iran has started cloud-seeding to boost rainfall after the country’s worst drought in decades forced authorities to ration supply and warn of possible evacuations from the capital.
A specially equipped aircraft conducted the operation on Saturday, which involves dispersing chemicals into clouds to encourage the formation of raindrops, in the northwest of the country near Lake Urmia, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported Sunday.
Urmia was once the biggest lake in the Middle East but is now largely dry after years of mounting water crises in Iran blamed on mismanagement, over-extraction from aquifers and climate change.
The current drought is the worst in decades, with some water supplies in Tehran being rationed and President Masoud Pezeshkian warning that the city’s population may have to evacuate. Reservoirs supplying Tehran are at their lowest level in 60 years, the head of the city’s water company said last week.
The Ministry of Energy plans to extend Sunday’s operation, the first in the hydrological year that began in October, to all suitable weather systems, IRNA reported.
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