Iran faces unprecedented drought as water crisis hits Tehran

Iran, especially its capital Tehran, is facing an unprecedented drought this autumn; rainfall is at record lows and reservoirs are nearly empty. As the crisis deepens, authorities are calling on citizens to save water.

President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned that Tehran’s water supplies could be rationed if there is not enough rainfall soon. But even rationing may not be enough to prevent a disaster, he said.

“If rationing doesn’t work, we may have to evacuate Tehran,” Pezeshkian said.

His comments sparked criticism in Iranian newspapers and social media. Former Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi called the idea a “joke” and said “it makes no sense to evacuate Tehran.”

Iranian meteorological officials say that no rainfall is expected for the next 10 days.

Meanwhile, the water crisis is already affecting daily life in the capital.

“I plan to buy water tankers to use for toilets and other needs,” a woman in Tehran told BBC Persian.

During the summer, Iranian rapper Vafa Ahmadpoor ​​posted a video on social media showing a kitchen faucet with no running water.

“It’s been four or five hours,” he said. “I bought bottled water so I could go to the restroom.”

The manager of the Latian Dam, one of Tehran’s main water sources, says it currently has less than 10% of its capacity. The nearby Karaj Dam, which supplies water to both Tehran and Alborz provinces, is in similarly poor condition.

“I have never seen this dam this empty since I was born,” an elderly resident told Iranian state television.

According to Mohammad-Ali Moallem, manager of the Karaj Dam, rainfall has decreased significantly.

“We have experienced a 92 percent decrease in rainfall compared to last year,” he said. “There is only eight percent of water in our reservoir and most of it is unusable and considered ‘dead water’.”

The government is currently pinning its hopes on late autumn rains, but the forecast is bleak. Iranian Energy Minister Abbas Ali Abadi warned that the situation could soon force authorities to cut off water supplies.

“Some nights we can reduce the water flow to zero,” he said.

Authorities have also announced plans to penalize households and businesses that consume excessive amounts of water.

Iranian Energy Minister Ali Abadi said that the water crisis in Tehran is not only caused by the lack of rainfall. He blamed water leakage from the capital’s century-old water infrastructure and even pointed to the last 12 days of war with Israel.

During this conflict, Israel targeted the Tacrish neighborhood in northern Tehran on June 15. Videos taken later showed severe flooding in the area.

The day after the attack, the Israel Defense Forces announced that it had targeted Iranian military “command centres”.

But the crisis extends far beyond the capital.

Ahmed Vazifeh, Head of Iran’s National Center for Climate and Drought Crisis Management, warned that dams in many other provinces besides Tehran, including West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan and Markazi, are also in an “alarming situation” and water levels are in single digit percentages.

Authorities in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city, are also sounding the alarm.

The Governor of Khorasan Razavi Province in northeastern Iran said that the water reserves in Mashhad dams had fallen “below eight percent” and warned that the province was facing a “major drought problem”.

The CEO of Mashhad Water and Wastewater Company put this figure even lower.

“The storage level of the city’s main dam is below three percent,” Hossein Esmaeilian said. he said.

“Only three percent of the total capacity of Mashhad’s four water-supplying dams (Torogh, Kardeh, Doosti and Ardak) remains. Apart from Doosti Dam, the other three dams are out of operation.”

Iran’s water crisis has been decades in the making.

Even Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly acknowledged the looming threat, mentioning water scarcity in his Nowruz speeches in 2011 and on other occasions in subsequent years.

But little has changed.

Tehran, Karaj and Mashhad, which host more than 16 million people in total today, face the possibility of their taps running dry.