Tehran Taps Run Dry as Water Crisis Deepens across Iran

Reuters

10:52 JST, November 20, 2025

DUBAI (Reuters) — Iran is grappling with its worst water crisis in decades, with officials warning that Tehran — a city of more than 10 million — may soon be uninhabitable if the drought gripping the country continues.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has cautioned that if rainfall does not arrive by December, the government must start rationing water in Tehran.

“Even if we do ration and it still does not rain, then we will have no water at all. They [citizens] have to evacuate Tehran,” Pezeshkian said on Nov. 6.

The stakes are high for Iran’s clerical rulers. In 2021, water shortages sparked violent protests in the southern Khuzestan Province. Sporadic protests also broke out in 2018, with farmers in particular accusing the government of water mismanagement.

Pressure reductions applied

The water crisis in Iran after a scorching hot summer is not solely the result of low rainfall.

Decades of mismanagement, including overbuilding of dams, illegal well drilling and inefficient agricultural practices, have depleted reserves, dozens of critics and water experts have told state media in the past days as the crisis dominates the airwaves with panel discussions and debates.

Pezeshkian’s government has blamed the crisis on various factors such as the “policies of past governments, climate change and over-consumption.”

While there has been no sign of protests yet this time over the water crisis, Iranians are already struggling under the weight of a crippled economy, chiefly because of sanctions linked to the country’s disputed nuclear program.

Coping with persistent water shortages strains families and communities even further, intensifying the potential for unrest, when the clerical establishment is already facing international pressure over its nuclear ambitions. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.

Across Iran, from the capital’s high-rise apartments to cities and small towns, the water crisis is taking hold.

When the taps went dry in her eastern Tehran apartment recently, Mahnaz had no warning and no backup.

“It was around 10 p.m., and the water didn’t come back until 6 a.m.,” she said. With no pump or storage, she and her two children were forced to wait, brushing teeth and washing hands with bottled water.

Iran’s National Water and Wastewater Company has dismissed reports of formal rationing in Tehran, but confirmed that nightly water pressure reductions were being applied in Tehran and could drop to zero in some districts, state media reported.

Pezeshkian also warned against over-consumption in July. The water authorities said at the time 70% of Tehran residents consumed more than the standard 130 liters a day.

Reservoirs at half capacity

Iranians have endured recurrent electricity, gas and water shortages during peak demand months in the past years.

“It’s one hardship after another — one day there’s no water, the next there’s no electricity. We don’t even have enough money to live. This is because of poor management,” said schoolteacher and mother of three Shahla, 41, by phone from central Tehran.

State media quoted Mohammadreza Kavianpour, head of Iran’s Water Research Institute, as saying that last year’s rainfall was 40% below the 57-year average in Iran and forecasts predict a continuation of dry conditions toward the end of December.

The capital depends entirely on five reservoirs fed from rivers outside the city. But inflow has plummeted. Behzad Parsa, head of Tehran’s Regional Water Company, said recently that water levels had fallen 43% from last year, leaving the Amir Kabir Dam at just 14 million cubic meters — 8% of capacity.

He said Tehran’s reservoirs, which collectively could once store nearly 500 million cubic meters, now hold barely 250 million, a drop of nearly half, which at current consumption rates, could run dry within two weeks.

The crisis extends far beyond Tehran. Nationwide, 19 major dams — roughly 10% of Iran’s total — have effectively run dry. In the holy Shi’ite city of Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city, with a population of 4 million, water reserves have plunged below 3%.

“The pressure is so low that literally we do not have water during the day. I have installed water tanks but how long we can continue like this? It is completely because of the mismanagement,” said Reza, 53, in Mashhad. He said it was also affecting his business of carpet cleaning.

Like the others Reuters spoke to, he declined to give his family name.

Climate intensified loss

The crisis follows record-breaking temperatures and rolling power outages. In July and August, the government declared emergency public holidays to reduce water and energy consumption, shutting down some public buildings and banks as temperatures topped 50 C in some areas.

Climate change has intensified the problem, authorities say, with rising temperatures accelerating evaporation and groundwater loss.

Some newspapers have criticized the government’s environmental policies, citing the appointment of unqualified managers and the politicization of resource management. The government has rejected the claims.

Calls for divine intervention have also resurfaced.

“In the past, people would go out to the desert to pray for rain,” said Mehdi Chamran, head of Tehran’s City Council, state media reported. “Perhaps we should not neglect that tradition.”

Authorities are taking temporary measures to conserve what remains, including decreasing the water pressure in some areas and transferring water to Tehran from other reservoirs.

But these are stopgap measures, and the public has been urged to install storage tanks pumps and other devices to avoid major disruption.

“Too little, too late. They only promise but we see no action,” said a university teacher in the city of Isfahan, who asked not to be named. “Most of these ideas are not doable.”

Rainfall causes floods

DUBAI (Reuters) — Rainfall caused floods in parts of western Iran on Nov. 17, after months of drought led to the worst water crisis in decades and pushed authorities to begin cloud seeding over the weekend. The country’s meteorological organization issued a warning for flooding in six western provinces for Nov. 17 and said it expected rain in 18 out of Iran’s 31 provinces.

On Nov. 15, Iran was able to perform its first cloud seeding this year above the watershed of Lake Urmia, in Iran’s northwest and further north from the areas where flooding was reported, according to the Young Journalists Club (YJC).

Cloud-seeding is a process in which chemicals are implanted into clouds to increase rainfall in an environment where water scarcity is a concern.

However, the technique can only be applied when environmental conditions improve and can only be used as a stopgap solution.

“In addition to cloud seeding’s heavy cost, the amount of rainfall it produces is nowhere near what is needed to solve our water crisis,” Sahar Tajbakhsh, head of Iran’s Meteorological Organization, told state TV on Nov. 16.

YJC’s report added that conditions are not yet present for cloud seeding in Tehran, which officials said may soon be uninhabitable if the drought gripping the country continues.