The history of our cities has been written in water.

In Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley, the first urban settlements were built around irrigated farmland. Flooded terrace fields for rice, corn and quinoa accompanied the spread of civilization in East Asia and the Americas. Without water, the megacities that will define the 21st century would wither and perish.

That's looking like a risk factor in an increasing number of locations. Cape Town and Chennai in recent years endured punishing droughts that left them on the brink of crisis. Similar conditions afflicted the upwardly mobile Indian cities of Bengaluru and Hyderabad last year. Now Tehran (biggest of all, with about 15 million people) is facing the same emergency.

Residents of Iran

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