Within the past 25 years almost 25 million Iranians have been displaced amid water scarcity worries.

Mehdi Zare’, Professor of the International Research Institute of Seismology said: “There are about 12 million marginalized people in Iran, and almost 10 million of this population are directly facing problems caused by the water crisis.”

In an interview with Hamshahri online, he said water scarcity and the subsidence of the earth have deteriorated in Iran and according to geologists, seven provinces now face dire situations.

One of these provinces is Isfahan, where land subsidence has reached the residential areas. Tehran province is also not safe from subsidence and in recent months, many cases of land subsidence were witnessed on highways around the city.

Iran ranks fourth in land subsidence in the world and 30 provinces of the country are involved in it. It is said that the land subsidence in Iran is more than five times the world average.

The main reason for land subsidence in Iran is the draining of underground water and the digging of deep wells since the 1060s, Zare explained.

Last month, Iran International obtained documents revealing that Iranian officials are aware of dangerous land subsidence but are unwilling to share it with the public.

A confidential letter revealed that about 550 square kilometers of land in and around the capital Tehran (about the size of the UK city of Manchester or the US city of El Paso, Texas) is sinking an average of over 13 centimeters (about 5.12 inches) per year.

According to another document, 380 cities and towns and 9,200 villages are at risk of land subsidence.