Tehran to restrict water as Iran battles drought

By S�bastien RICCI et Ahmad PARHIZI
Tehran (AFP) Nov 8, 2025

Iran was laying plans on Saturday to cut off water supplies periodically to Tehran's 10-million-strong population as it battles its worst drought in many decades.

Rainfall in the capital has this year been at its lowest level in a century, local officials say, and half of Iran's provinces have not seen a drop fall in months.

Now, to save water, the government is planning water cuts in Tehran -- and several local news outlets have already reported pipes running dry overnight in some areas.

"This will help avoid waste even though it may cause inconvenience," Iran's Energy Minister Abbas Ali Abadi said on state television.

In a speech broadcast on Friday, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian had warned that Tehran might have to be evacuated if no rain falls before the end of the year.

But he gave no details about how such a vast operation would be conducted.

Tehran nestles on the southern slopes of the Alborz mountains and has hot dry summers usually relieved by autumn rains and winter snowfall.

- Reservoirs run dry -

Tehran is by far the country's biggest city and its inhabitants use three million cubic metres of water per day, according to local media.

The main Amir Kabir dam on the Karaj river, one of five reservoirs serving the capital, is running dry and holds only 14 million cubic litres, according to Behzad Parsa, director general of the Tehran water company, cited by the official news agency IRNA.

During the same period last year, the reservoir held 86 million cubic metres, he added, but now it only has enough to maintain supplies to the Tehran region for less than two weeks.

On Saturday, state television broadcast images of several dams, serving the central city of Isfahan and Tabriz in the northwest, showing significantly lower water levels compared to previous years.

Hassan Hosseini, the deputy Iran's second-largest city Mashhad, told IRNA agency on Thursday that night-time water cuts were being considered to address the water shortage.

And over the summer on July and August, two public holidays were declared in Tehran to save water and energy, at a time when power outages were almost daily during the intense heatwave.

Iran president warns Tehran may face evacuation due to drought
Tehran (AFP) Nov 7, 2025 - Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned in a speech broadcast on Friday that the capital Tehran may need evacuating because of water shortages if it doesn't rain before the end of the year.

"If it doesn't rain, we'll have to start rationing water in Tehran between late November and early December", Pezeshkian said in a speech broadcast on state TV.

"Even if we do ration it and it still doesn't rain by then, we'll run out of water, we'll have to evacuate Tehran."

It was not immediately clear how the capital would be evacuated.

Iran as a whole has been affected by dwindling rainfall, but the sprawling megacity of more than 10 million people is particularly vulnerable.

On Sunday, the director of the regional water company, Behzad Parsa, warned in state media that there was just two weeks' worth of water left in the main reservoir serving Tehran.

Meanwhile, Tasnim News Agency reported that the country's precipitation level this year had reached just 152 millimetres, a 40 percent decline compared to the 57-year average.

The agency quoted Mohammad Reza Kavianpour, head of the Water Research Institute, as saying that several provinces "experienced a 50 to 80 percent decline in precipitation."

He added that storage in the capital's dams in the new water year, which began in late September, was around 250 million cubic metres, roughly half of the 490 million cubic metres recorded in the 2023-24 water year.

"We must prepare ourselves for a critical situation," he said, according to Tasnim.

Water levels in the reservoirs supplying the capital have fallen to their lowest in decades, according to Mohsen Ardakani, director general of the provincial water company covering Tehran.

"In the last six months, the population has saved 10 percent of its water consumption," Ardakani said on state TV on Wednesday.

"If this figure reaches 20 percent, we will be able to ensure a stable water situation for the next one to two months when the rains start again," he added.

Winter months in Tehran usually bring rainfall and often snow.

A sharp decline in rainfall and reduced dam inflow have deepened the crisis, as Iran faces one of its worst droughts in decades.

As a conservation measure, water supplies have reportedly been cut off in several neighbourhoods of Tehran in recent months, while outages were frequent throughout the summer.

In July and August, two public holidays were declared to save water and energy, as power cuts became an almost daily occurrence amid a severe heatwave.