During the past three days, some western provinces of Iran have been having their wettest fall ever as far as registered meteorological data and living memories show.

To everybody’s surprise, only in Ilam and Kuhdasht, for example, record rainfalls of 280 millimeters and 80 millimeters in 48 hours, the former a first in a century, were reported.
While this whopping precipitation may be harbinger of more torrential downpours to come and as a result, of better harvests to collect in the summer, it has wrought havoc on the region.
According to the latest reports from the affected areas, eight people, including a family of three living in a basement in Kuhdasht, have lost their lives in consequence of flash floods in Ilam and Lorestan provinces. Some more have been injured.
Beside the death tall, the flash floods have inflicted heavy damage on the region’s infrastructure such as city and village thoroughfares, and electricity and water supply networks.
While the situation as it is cannot be rectified overnight, however, some retrospective thinking into underlying factors may contribute to a better future prevention and performance.
For a start, during the past years, western parts of the country have been battered by repeated droughts. Due to this natural phenomenon, the regional ecosystem has undergone step changes.
Many of the region’s trees, which are mainly oak ones, have withered owing to low precipitation and illness. During lasting years of dusty weather, leaves of the trees have stopped photosynthesis as the dust layer sitting on them have prevented the sun’s light from reaching the leaves, resulting in the lessoned photosynthesis.
As a ripple effect of repeated droughts, the desertification in the region has gathered momentum. In addition to far-reaching, profound implications of the phenomenon for the ecological and biological make-up of the area, the topsoil and subsoil have lost their porosity.
Originally, the soil is loose and porous and holds water quite well. Once this porous composition for whatsoever reasons is tweaked, then it takes more time for the rain to percolate through the ground.
In addition to natural reasons such as the ones referred to above, human beings are also held accountable.
Among such human sources, reference can be made to annual burning of hectares of western jungles due to the habitants’ carelessness, construction of dams, and road-building projects which cut through mountainous areas.
It is interesting to know that it is not the first time Ilam and Kuhdahst are hitting the headlines as in the last summer there were reports of jungle fires from both areas, because of which hundreds of hectares of jungles were burned!
But how is this whole related to the recent flash floods in the region? I wonder if it demands convoluted mathematical analysis to figure out the link.
Because of drought and desertification, the ecosystem of the region has gone through drastic changes. Consequently, the topsoil has lost its porosity and can no longer contain water in itself.
Once torrential rainfalls befall, the topsoil, since it is parched, cannot contain water and so flood is formed.
The human part of the story starts, where the nature itself, which can potentially save us, has already been weakened by our carelessness.
To come to a conclusion, the damage caused by the flash floods happening hot on the heels of the recent torrential downpours in western parts of the country in general and Ilam and Kuhdasht cities in particular are the outcome of a number of natural and human factors.
However, there is one thing one can be wholeheartedly assured of. That is, neither the Mother Nature nor clouds but human beings are to blame as we are increasingly ruining the surrounding environment.
And we should bear in mind that it is we ourselves taking the brunt of the Nature’s wrath!