CCNY Research Professor Kaveh Madani wins 'Nobel Prize of Water'

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/ccny-research-professor-kaveh-madani-wins-nobel-prize-water

March 18, 2026

In a special ceremony at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris to mark World Water Day, Kaveh Madani, Research Professor in The City College of New York’s CUNY-CREST Institute, and Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), was named the 2026 Stockholm Water Prize recipient. He will receive the award from His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden during World Water Week in Stockholm in August.

The Stockholm Water Prize is the ultimate global recognition for extraordinary achievements in water-related activities. Often described as the “Nobel Prize of Water,” it is the most prestigious water award given annually to an individual or organization for outstanding contributions to the sustainable use and protection of water resources. It is awarded by the Stockholm Water Foundation in cooperation with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The architect of the ‘water bankruptcy’ concept, Madani has earned this immense honor for his courageous and peerless ability to transform groundbreaking research into global policy, diplomacy and outreach under extreme personal risk and political complexity.

His selection as this year’s prize winner stands out not only for his scientific achievements, but for the extraordinary journey behind them. It’s also a historic milestone for the global water community: at age 44, Madani is the youngest laureate in the prize's 35-year history, the first UN official, and the first former politician to receive the honor.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/18/iran-scientist-exile-wins-stockholm-water-prize-kaveh-madani

‘They called me a water terrorist’: exiled Iranian scientist wins global prize
Prof Kaveh Madani, winner of the Stockholm water prize, was accused of sabotage with his environmental work

Rachel Salvidge
Wed 18 Mar 2026 12.15 EDT

Eight years before he got the call telling him he had won the Stockholm water prize, Prof Kaveh Madani was being interrogated by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, accused of being a spy for the CIA, MI6 or the Mossad.

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“Some said I was trying to destroy Iranian agriculture, reduce production so the country would rely on imported food,” he says. The charges kept coming. “They called me an infiltrator, a ‘water terrorist’ and even a ‘bioterrorist’,” with some claiming he wanted to weaken Iran by pushing reliance on genetically modified food. “You read it and you laugh. But after repeated interrogations you realise they are serious.”

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In 2018 the Revolutionary Guards intensified a crackdown on environmental experts. Madani was arrested and interrogated multiple times. Several conservationists were jailed. One of them, the Iranian-Canadian professor Kavous Seyed-Emami, died in custody under disputed circumstances.

Madani fled the country and went into hiding. Eventually he resurfaced in the US, taking up an academic role at Yale before moving into international work. Today he leads the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, often described as the UN’s thinktank on water.

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[Deuxcents]

1. Interesting..the professor could have lost his life trying to help with water issues but now has a Nobel

And Iran still has severe water issues…there were reports that some migration would have to happen within the country because of shortages and other problems. I hope the professor doesn’t have any problems like immigration here and he continues his work.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. After Ruining a Treasured Water Resource, Iran Is Drying Up

https://e360.yale.edu/features/iran-water-drought-dams-qanats

Iran is looking to relocate the nation’s capital because of severe water shortages that make Tehran unsustainable. Experts say the crisis was caused by years of ill-conceived dam projects and overpumping that destroyed a centuries-old system for tapping underground reserves.
BY FRED PEARCE • DECEMBER 18, 2025

More than international sanctions, more than its stifling theocracy, more than recent bombardment by Israel and the U.S. — Iran’s greatest current existential crisis is what hydrologists are calling its rapidly approaching “water bankruptcy.”

It is a crisis that has a sad origin, they say: the destruction and abandonment of tens of thousands of ancient tunnels for sustainably tapping underground water, known as qanats, that were once the envy of the arid world. But calls for the Iranian government to restore qanats and recharge the underground water reserves that once sustained them are falling on deaf ears.

After a fifth year of extreme drought, Iran’s long-running water crisis reached unprecedented levels in November. The country’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, warned that Iran had “no choice” but to move its capital away from arid Tehran, which now has a population of about 10 million, to wetter coastal regions — a project that would take decades and has a price estimated by analysts at potentially $100 billion.

While failed rains may be the immediate cause of the crisis, hydrologists say, the root cause is more than half a century of often foolhardy modern water engineering — extending back to before the country’s Islamic revolution of 1979, but accelerated by the Ayatollahs’ policies since.

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More water migrations are coming. Some say “water wars” are already occurring.

https://news.asu.edu/20250725-environment-and-sustainability-new-global-study-shows-freshwater-disappearing-alarming

New global study shows freshwater is disappearing at alarming rates
ASU-led research uses 20 years of satellite data to reveal unprecedented continental drying

By Sandy Keaton Leander |
July 25, 2025

New findings from studying over two decades of satellite observations reveal that the Earth’s continents have experienced unprecedented freshwater loss since 2002, driven by climate change, unsustainable groundwater use and extreme droughts.

The study, led by Arizona State University and published today in Science Advances, highlights the emergence of four continental-scale “mega-drying” regions, all located in the Northern Hemisphere, and warns of severe consequences for water security, agriculture, sea-level rise and global stability.

The research team reports that drying areas on land are expanding at a rate roughly twice the size of California every year. And, the rate at which dry areas are getting drier now outpaces the rate at which wet areas are getting wetter, reversing long-standing hydrological patterns.

The negative implications of this for available freshwater are staggering. Seventy-five percent of the world’s population lives in 101 countries that have been losing freshwater for the past 22 years. According to the United Nations, the world’s population is expected to continue to grow for the next 50 to 60 years — at the same time the availability of freshwater is dramatically shrinking.

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Hrishikesh A. Chandanpurkar et al. ,Unprecedented continental drying, shrinking freshwater availability, and increasing land contributions to sea level rise.Sci. Adv.11,eadx0298(2025).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adx0298

[Deuxcents]

3. Thanks for this..I read a different article about it but this is more in depth

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. You're welcome!

If you can, check out the map associated with the 2nd item…