Linking Water Scarcity to Mental Health: Hydro–Social Interruptions in the Lake Urmia Basin, Iran

Abstract

Alterations of water flows resulting from the manifestation of powerful hydro–social imaginaries often produce an uneven distribution of burdens and benefits for different social groups or regions, reflecting their social and political power. Marginalized regions can suffer manufactured territorialized water scarcity, which disturbs the natural, economic and socio-political order of water users, and as this article shows, inevitably affects their psychological wellbeing. Set in the context of the surroundings of Lake Urmia in Iran, once one of the largest hypersaline lakes in the world and now a severely degraded ecosystem mainly as a result of water overuse in its watershed, this article explores how and through which pathways this manufactured water scarcity impacted the mental health of the water users in the region. The research findings reveal that alterations in this local hydro–social territory and the resulting biophysical, financial and social changes, as well as impacts on physical health of water users, relate to chronic psychological stress, social isolation, intra-community conflicts, despair, hopelessness, depression and anxiety.

How a typical West African day in the future-climate compares with current-climate conditions in a convection-permitting and parameterised convection climate model

“…Rising temperatures have been linked to an increase in mental health concerns (Reiser 2017;Hayes et al 2018), with tangible links between a more varying climate with respects to temperature and mental stress identified (Willox et al 2013;Reiser 2017;Hayes et al 2018). Further studies have identified long-lasting negative mental health impacts (such as posttraumatic stress disorder) associated with natural disasters, as well as temperature and water stress and degradation of local ecosystems (Ginexi et al 2000;Norris et al 2002Norris et al , 2004DeSalvo et al 2007;North and Pfefferbaum 2013;Cunsolo and Ellis 2018;Marshall et al 2019;Zenko and Menga 2019). The more extreme future-climate typical conditions projected in CP4-A and P25 could amplify the frequency of damaging HIW events along the lines presently observed (Tarhule 2005;Di Baldassarre et al 2010;Nka et al 2015;Wilcox et al 2018;Panthou et al 2014Panthou et al , 2018Taylor et al 2017;Tazen et al 2018), and thus increase mental stress for some people living in West Africa.…”

Socio‐environmental confounders of safe water interventions

“…For example, low and intermediate water access was associated with higher blood pressure in women in both urban and rural Nepal, with the highest pressure associated with the lowest access (Brewis, Choudhary, & Wutich, 2019b). Limited water access has been found to be associated with increased anxiety, worry, stress, feelings of hopelessness, and arguments over water (Brewis, Choudhary, & Wutich, 2019a; Kangmennaang, Bisung, & Elliott, 2020; Krumdieck et al, 2016; Ženko & Menga, 2019). People with poor mental health in rural Malawi—in contrast to those with good mental health—perceived that the collection of safe water required time and effort and that it was therefore difficult to collect enough water; they also felt more vulnerable to disease from not collecting safe water (Slekiene & Mosler, 2019).…”

Pedestrian Walkways for Health in Shiraz, Iran, the Contribution of Attitudes, and Perceived Environmental Attributes

“…As stated before, the importance of landscape elements such as trees and flowers in regard to mental health has been widely demonstrated [51][52][53][54]. Likewise, the impact of water-related elements on mental health has been demonstrated by the few studies which considered such a relationship [84,85]. In addition, the importance of social interaction and therefore of the social spaces that encourage such interaction in order to enhance mental health and reduce anxiety has been indicated as well [28,60].…”