The water crisis in Iran has reached a stage where several provinces, including Tehran, Mashhad, and Kerman, are facing emergency conditions and, in some cases, “de facto rationing.” In the capital, the deputy head of Tehran’s Regional Water Company says the province’s dams have reached their “strategic volume.”
Rama Habibi, deputy head of Tehran’s Regional Water Company, announced on Saturday, November 22, that the reservoirs of the capital’s dams have reached a level where further extraction could endanger the safety of the dams and the supply network.
U.S. State Dept: Iran’s Water Crisis Is Result of Decades of Regime Mismanagement
He said: “I cannot say that Tehran’s dams have reached their dead volume, but they are almost at a level below which it is considered strategic volume, and this volume must remain in the dam.”
According to Habibi, none of the capital’s dams have yet been taken offline, but some have reached levels where even technically extracting water from them is no longer possible.
“Strategic volume” refers to the portion of a reservoir’s stored water that is reserved for crisis management during severe droughts or floods and is not permitted for daily consumption.
According to official statistics, Tehran is now experiencing its sixth consecutive year of drought.
The water level of the Latian Dam has reached its lowest point in sixty years, and the Karaj Dam is at less than 10% of its capacity. As a result, 70% of Tehran’s water now comes from groundwater sources—sources already heavily strained, with many aquifers on the verge of land subsidence.
Water pressure management in Tehran
Isa Bozorgzadeh, spokesperson for Iran’s water industry, announced that “water pressure management” remains one of the main tools of the Ministry of Energy to delay the water crisis in the capital, and reduced water pressure continues across various districts of Tehran.
Bozorgzadeh said that pressure reduction is applied from midnight until the early morning hours, when consumption is lower, and continues with less intensity during the day.
He warned that if citizens do not respond to the Ministry of Energy’s request to reduce consumption by 10%, pressure management may extend beyond the current time window into other hours of the day.
Sharp decline in rainfall; twenty provinces without precipitation
Mohammad Javanbakht, head of Iran’s Water Resources Management Company, announced that in the past fifty days only 3.5 millimeters of rainfall have been recorded nationwide, an amount equal to just 18% of the normal average.
According to him, twenty provinces have received no rainfall at all, and the last water year was Iran’s fifth consecutive dry year.
Javanbakht said: “Last year, Tehran and Bandar Abbas experienced the driest period in their operational history.”
A 40% decrease in precipitation has left the country’s dams with the lowest water levels in more than a decade.
Mashhad: start of rationing and depletion of dam reserves
Nasrollah Pejmanfar, head of Article 90 Commission in Iran’s regime parliament, announced on November 21 that in Mashhad “the Doosti Dam no longer has water to transfer, and the water of Mashhad’s dams has reached zero.”
He confirmed that the metropolis is now under rationing.
Pejmanfar attributed the water shortage to “mismanagement and the absence of watershed and aquifer management,” stating that the country’s drainage basins have a capacity of about 400 billion cubic meters, but much of this water leaves the country due to lack of planning.
Kerman: collapse of qanats and “gradual death” in one of the driest provinces
Field reports from Kerman Province depict a picture of gradual collapse of life in the region.
Qanats are drying up, groundwater has turned bitter and salty, orchards and farmlands have been destroyed, and a large portion of wildlife faces extinction.
In many areas, water flows only through worn-out pumps, while excessive consumption in household and agricultural sectors continues.
Experts say that continued flood irrigation, crop patterns mismatched with the climate, and excessive extraction from aquifers have pushed the situation to the level of an “ecosystem death.”
Drought, mismanagement, or a combination of both?
Although many officials attribute the crisis primarily to drought, water resource experts believe mismanagement, unregulated urban expansion, excessive development pressure, and a lack of consumption management planning play the key roles.
Excessive extraction from thousands of wells around Tehran, massive water loss in the distribution network, expansion of construction colonies, widespread issuance of permits for new settlements, and the minimal use of modern technologies in consumption management all contribute to the worsening crisis.
Water experts stress that continuing the current trend could make water supply impossible for 30% to 50% of Tehran’s population within five to ten years.
Some have also warned that if effective rainfall does not occur in the coming winter, the country may enter a broader phase of rationing and even “localized evacuation” of certain areas.
