March 18, 2026

In a special ceremony at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris to mark World Water Day, Kaveh Madani, Research Professor in The City College of New York’s CUNY-CREST Institute, and Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), was named the 2026 Stockholm Water Prize recipient. He will receive the award from His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden during World Water Week in Stockholm in August.

The Stockholm Water Prize is the ultimate global recognition for extraordinary achievements in water-related activities. Often described as the “Nobel Prize of Water,” it is the most prestigious water award given annually to an individual or organization for outstanding contributions to the sustainable use and protection of water resources. It is awarded by the Stockholm Water Foundation in cooperation with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The architect of the ‘water bankruptcy’ concept, Madani has earned this immense honor for his courageous and peerless ability to transform groundbreaking research into global policy, diplomacy and outreach under extreme personal risk and political complexity.

His selection as this year’s prize winner stands out not only for his scientific achievements, but for the extraordinary journey behind them. It’s also a historic milestone for the global water community: at age 44, Madani is the youngest laureate in the prize's 35-year history, the first UN official, and the first former politician to receive the honor.

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‘They called me a water terrorist’: exiled Iranian scientist wins global prize
Prof Kaveh Madani, winner of the Stockholm water prize, was accused of sabotage with his environmental work

Rachel Salvidge
Wed 18 Mar 2026 12.15 EDT

Eight years before he got the call telling him he had won the Stockholm water prize, Prof Kaveh Madani was being interrogated by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, accused of being a spy for the CIA, MI6 or the Mossad.

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“Some said I was trying to destroy Iranian agriculture, reduce production so the country would rely on imported food,” he says. The charges kept coming. “They called me an infiltrator, a ‘water terrorist’ and even a ‘bioterrorist’,” with some claiming he wanted to weaken Iran by pushing reliance on genetically modified food. “You read it and you laugh. But after repeated interrogations you realise they are serious.”

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In 2018 the Revolutionary Guards intensified a crackdown on environmental experts. Madani was arrested and interrogated multiple times. Several conservationists were jailed. One of them, the Iranian-Canadian professor Kavous Seyed-Emami, died in custody under disputed circumstances.

Madani fled the country and went into hiding. Eventually he resurfaced in the US, taking up an academic role at Yale before moving into international work. Today he leads the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, often described as the UN’s thinktank on water.

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