Iran’s worsening drought has pushed water supplies in several provinces to critical levels, with officials in Tehran, Mashhad and Kerman warning that some reservoirs are close to the point where routine distribution may no longer be possible.
Tehran’s main dams have fallen to volumes that must be preserved for safety and contingency, said Rama Habibi, deputy head of the city’s regional water authority, on Saturday.
“I cannot say Tehran’s dams have reached dead storage, but they are almost at a level below which the remaining volume is considered strategic and must stay in place,” Habibi said.
While none of the capital’s dams has been taken offline, he said some have dropped so low that water can no longer be pumped out efficiently.
Tehran is now in its sixth straight year of drought. Official data show the capital’s Latian dam at its lowest point in six decades, while the Karaj dam holds less than one-tenth of its capacity. As a result, about 70 percent of Tehran’s water is now pumped from underground sources that are under severe strain and at risk of subsidence.
Pressure management and looming restrictions
Pressure management remains one of the ministry’s key tools to delay wider shortages, said Isa Bozorgzadeh, spokesman for Iran’s water sector. Pressure reductions, he added, are imposed from midnight until early morning when consumption is lower, with milder reductions continuing during the day.
Bozorgzadeh warned that if households fail to meet the ministry’s request for a 10-percent cut in use, pressure limits may be expanded to other hours.
Nationwide drought deepens
Only 3.5 millimeters of rainfall were recorded nationwide over the past 50 days, amounting to just 18 percent of normal levels, Mohammad Javanbakht, head of Iran’s water resources management company said.
20 provinces, according to him, saw no rainfall at all and last year marked Iran’s fifth consecutive dry year. “Tehran and Bandar Abbas experienced the lowest water levels in their operational history last year,” Javanbakht said.
Rainfall, he noted, has fallen roughly 40 percent below long-term averages, leaving the country’s dams with their lowest combined storage in more than a decade.
Mashhad and Kerman reach breaking point
The religious city of Mashhad has entered full rationing, Nasrollah Pejmanfar, a lawmaker, said on Friday.
The city’s Dousti dam, he added, “has no water left to transfer, and the reservoirs supplying Mashhad have reached zero,” attributing the crisis to inadequate watershed management.
In Kerman, south of Iran, field accounts describe collapsing aquifers, abandoned orchards and shrinking wildlife habitats. Local pumping systems are deteriorating, while flood irrigation and unsuited crop patterns continue to drain groundwater.
Water specialists warn that unchecked extraction, losses in distribution networks, rapid urban expansion and limited adoption of modern conservation technologies could make reliable supply unattainable for 30 to 50 percent of Tehran’s population within five to ten years.
They caution that without effective winter precipitation, Iran may face broader rationing and possible localized evacuations in the months ahead.
