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IRAN WATER CRISIS INTENSIFIES, AND IN THE PHILIPPINES, CITIZENS PROTEST AGAINST CORRUPTION IN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

November 13-19, 2025 | Issue 44 - Emergency Management, Health and Hazard Team (EMH2)

Chiara Michieli, Leon Kille, Marija Lazic, Cristina Calvo

Elena Alice Rossetti, Editor; Camilla Raffaelli, Senior Editor


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Water Dam[1]


Date: November 12, 2025

Location: Iran

Parties involved: Iran; Iranian Ministry of Energy; government; government security forces; pro-reform newspapers; pro-reform news outlet Etemad; citizens; farmers; agricultural workers; herding communities; United Arab Emirates; India

The event: Iran’s water crisis intensifies, triggering speculations about water rationing and evacuation warnings in Tehran.[2]

Analysis & Implications:

  • The water crisis will likely severely impact Iran’s food production, with a roughly even chance of prompting persistent food shortages across the country. Water scarcity will likely deprive agricultural workers and herding communities of their livelihoods, with farmers very likely facing reduced harvests, especially in water-intensive crops such as wheat and rice, and struggling to provide for their livestock. The Iranian Ministry of Energy will very likely focus its long-term strategy on expanding Iran’s dam infrastructure while relying on temporary palliatives such as cloud seeding in the short-term, unlikely implementing structural agricultural reforms, such as incentivizing dryland farming and improving existing irrigation systems. Insufficient domestic food production will very likely force Iran to deplete its foreign reserves and deepen existing dependencies on foreign cereal supply, especially from the United Arab Emirates and India, with a roughly even chance of failing to fully compensate for the decrease in domestic food production.

  • Iran’s water crisis will likely lead to widespread discontent and localized social turmoil in the near future. The government’s current strategy of disseminating disinformation to downplay shortcomings will unlikely appease public discontent, with the continued absence of a coherent crisis management strategy likely promoting further resentment. Pro-reform newspapers, such as Etemad, will very likely continue combating official government communications to expose government incompetence and corruption as the leading cause for their predicament, likely attempting to encourage a decisive public response. Raising public awareness will likely encourage citizens, especially in Tehran, to voice dissent and participate in protests for reforming Iran’s water governance and seeking regime change, with excessive deployment of government security forces very likely constraining them.        


Date: November 16, 2025 

Location: Manila, Philippines

Parties involved: Philippines; government; government officials; Philippines disaster management agencies; public; protesters; international donors; multilateral development bank Asian Development Bank (ADB); Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH); groups; environmental activism network Greenpeace Philippines

The event: Protesters gathered in response to a flood-control project corruption scandal, allegedly involving government officials.[3]

Analysis & Implications:

  • The Manila rally will very likely lead groups such as Greenpeace Philippines to intensify oversight, likely impeding the government from enacting concrete change in their system. Public pressure will likely expand calls for the emergency management sector, such as the DPWH, to prove the effectiveness of its mitigation infrastructure projects, demanding publicly accessible maintenance records and data on the performance of pumping stations, very likely slowing ongoing projects as disaster management agencies redirect resources to meet higher transparency standards. There is a roughly even chance that increased attention to accountability processes will discourage the government from implementing projects due to fear of corruption allegations, likely leading to prolonged stalls in which no necessary projects begin. The constant oversight will likely limit the government’s ability to manage climate-related risks without incurring reputational costs, very likely increasing the risk of delays due to compliance burdens and disrupted funding, leading to failures in emergency response capacity and eroding public trust.

  • The protests’ pressures on emergency management operations will likely prompt international donors to inquire into Manila’s flood-control management and corruption allegations, very likely seeking to reassess the origin of their operational bottlenecks. As international donors probe these vulnerabilities, they will likely demand granular evidence, such as engineering audits and procurement traceability, very likely aiming to ensure that the government will not misuse potential climate-adaptation funds and grants. These donor decisions will likely reshape the internal incentives of the Philippines’ disaster-management agencies, but will unlikely push them to institutionalize anti-corruption safeguards beyond the mere short-term satisfaction of external scrutiny. The government’s implementation of reforms, such as public disclosure of contracting decisions or standardized monitoring of flood-control maintenance cycles, will likely sustain climate-resilience funding by international donors, such as the ADB, but will unlikely convince them that the government’s response is a deep-rooted commitment to transparent adaptation governance.

[1] Water dam, generated by a third party image database (created by AI)

[3] Hundreds of thousands rally in Manila against flood-control corruption scandal, AP, November 2025,

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