Iran’s National Water and Wastewater Company on Sunday rejected reports of imposing formal rationing in Tehran but admitted nightly pressure cuts citywide that may fall to zero amid worsening shortages, state media reported.
"No water rationing — the scheduled and announced distribution and supply of water on a rotating basis — has so far been implemented in Tehran or any other city in the country," the Revolutionary Guards-affiliated Fars News reported citing the National Water and Wastewater Company.
Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi on Sunday called the nightly pressure cuts a temporary management tool to stabilize the city’s aging water network and reduce leakage. Similar steps taken during the summer, he said, conserved significant volumes.
The measure, in effect from midnight until early morning, is designed to conserve supplies and reduce network losses, the spokesperson for Iran’s water industry, Issa Bozorgzadeh, said.
“We lower water pressure from midnight until around dawn to reduce urban leakage and allow reservoirs to refill,” he said.
The energy minister said on Saturday “Tehran's water pipeline system is more than 100 years old and worn-out."
"During the 12-day war (with Israel in June), the pipelines also suffered damage, which further added to the deterioration. We are sometimes forced to reduce water pressure to zero on certain nights.”
Residents report repeated disruptions
Households across eastern and northern Tehran have reported recurring water cuts and sharp pressure drops in recent nights, according to IRNA. Residents told the outlet that the disruptions have become routine. Many apartment buildings have installed small pumps and storage tanks to mitigate the problem, while others without such systems face hours-long outages.
Inflow to Tehran’s dams has dropped by 43 percent compared with the previous water year, Behzad Parsa, managing director of the Tehran Regional Water Company, told IRNA. Parsa described the situation as unprecedented in decades, attributing it to a 100-percent decrease in rainfall in Tehran province compared with long-term averages.
Expert links crisis to long-term relocation plans
President Masoud Pezeshkian’s repeated focus on Tehran’s water crisis serves two purposes, Water and environmental expert Mohsen Mousavi-Khansari wrote in a piece on Etemad daily.
“The first is to encourage conservation among citizens and to prompt coordinated planning among agencies responsible for water supply, distribution, and use. The second is to prepare public opinion in Tehran and other major cities on the central plateau for the eventual transfer of part of the population and infrastructure toward Iran’s southern coasts.”
He linked this to Pezeshkian’s proposal to relocate the capital to the Makran region.
