Kaveh Madani

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Kaveh Madani (born 1981 in Tehran) is an Iranian scientist, activist, and former politician. He served as Deputy Head of Iran’s Department of Environment and, for a time, as a deputy vice president. He also led Iran’s delegation to major UN meetings and was involved in environmental policy at the international level. He is known for integrating game theory and decision analysis into water management and for developing the concept of “Water Bankruptcy,” the idea that many water systems are near collapse due to overuse and degradation. He authored the Global Water Bankruptcy Report, which warned about global water stress and the risk of widespread water system failure.

Madani has influenced Iran’s water policies and worked to raise public awareness about environmental issues at home. He has been called Iran’s expat eco-warrior and was seen as a symbol of the “expat return” during President Rouhani’s term.

Currently, he is the Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) and a Research Professor at the City College of New York’s CREST Institute. He has previously taught or conducted research at Yale University, Imperial College London, and the University of Central Florida, among others.

Education: BSc in Civil Engineering from the University of Tabriz; MSc in Water Resources from Lund University; PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Davis. He did postdoctoral work in environmental policy and economics at UC Riverside.

Public service and activism: He led Iran’s delegation to COP23 and UNEA-3 and launched the Bi-Zobaleh No Waste campaign to combat waste and plastic pollution, helping push for waste reduction in several Iranian cities.

Controversies: He was interrogated by Iran’s IRGC in February 2018, resigned from his political post in April 2018, and said he was under surveillance.

Awards and honors: 2012 ASCE New Faces of Civil Engineering; 2016 Arne Richter Award; 2017 Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize; 2019 AGU Hydrologic Sciences Early Career Award; 2020 AGU Ambassador Award. He has published hundreds of papers and is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and EWRI.