Rows of worshippers, some with their faces raised to the sky, others with their heads bowed, prayed for rain at a mosque in Tehran earlier this month. is their increasingly desperate plea. The city is grappling with a water crisis so severe that Iran’s president has suggested people may need to evacuate. Weeks passed, still no rain.
There are fears that water will run out completely in this huge, bustling city, whose metropolitan area is home to about 15 million people.
In a speech earlier this month, President Massoud Pezhekian said Tehran would be rationed if it did not rain by December. If the lack of rain continues, residents “will have to be displaced,” he said. Many experts say withdrawal is unlikely, but Pezhekian’s statement reflects the seriousness of Iran’s situation.
Tehran is in the spotlight, but it’s a crisis that goes beyond the capital. About 20 counties have not received a single drop of rain since the rainy season began in late September, said Mohsen B., associate professor of botany at the University of California, Davis. Mesgaran said. About 10% of the country’s dams have effectively dried up, according to Reuters.
Iranian women pray for rain at the Saleh shrine in Tehran on November 14 as the country faces an acute water shortage. – AFP/Getty Images
The roots of Iran’s water problem are echoed in many other parts of the world: decades of over-extraction; aging, leaking infrastructure; expansion of dams built on rivers; mismanagement; Allegations of corruption. Through this runs the thread of climate change, hotter, drier weather, which means that reservoirs that dry up year after year are not replenished.
Iran’s current drought is the worst for at least 40 years and water levels are falling “at a time of year when you would normally expect storage to recover, not collapse further,” said Amir Aghakouchak, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Irvine.
Iran, a mostly semi-arid country, is no stranger to water shortages, but they have rarely affected Tehran, home to most of the country’s rich and powerful.
As Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency reported earlier this month, the main reservoirs supplying the city are about 11% full, according to Mohsen Ardakani, director general of the Tehran Provincial Water and Sanitation Authority.
Latyan Dam, about 15 miles outside the city, is about 9% full. Since May, the reservoir at the foot of the Alborz Mountains has receded so much that it has left an almost entirely dry riverbed, with a few trickling streams.
The Amir Kabir Dam, about 40 miles northwest of Tehran, is also at dangerously low levels, currently at about 8% of its total capacity, according to Reuters.
Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city outside of Tehran, is home to about 3 million people, and water levels in reservoirs that supply homes are only about 3%, Hossein Ismailian, head of Mashhad’s water and wastewater utility company, said according to ISNA news.
The situation in Iran is not a short-term disaster, but a rolling, long-term disaster with irreversible damage, said Kaveh Madani, director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, who previously served as deputy head of Iran’s environment department.
He described the country as being in “water bankruptcy”, with its rivers draining from lakes and wetlands (like its checking account) and its underground aquifers (its savings account) at a much faster rate.
The government’s goal of achieving self-sufficiency in food, partly in response to Western sanctions, is largely responsible for the situation, experts say. “Policies over the decades have encouraged the expansion of irrigated agriculture in dry areas,” said Aghakouchak.
Irrigated arable land has doubled since 1979 and crops are thirsty, especially rice, an Iranian staple. Most of Iran’s water, about 90%, goes to agriculture.
Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran is an obvious casualty. Once one of the largest saltwater lakes on the planet, Urmia has dried up over the past decades. Drought has played a role but the biggest driver is the dams and wells that are standing nearby to support farms, cutting off supplies to the lake. They have “pushed the system beyond its limits,” Mesgaran said.
Farmers work in a rice field in Iran’s Golestan province in June 2023. – Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Wheat during harvest in Qazvin, Iran in 2022. – Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu/Getty Images
A pistachio tree grows on a tree in Sirjan, Kerman Province, Iran, in May 2025. – Morteza Nicoubajal/NurPhoto/Getty Images
Water-guzzling industries, such as oil and gas, have also been built in Iran’s arid and semi-arid regions, adding pressure to already vulnerable regions.
The growing urban population has also increased the demand. The situation is worsened by old infrastructure. “An estimated 30% of treated drinking water is lost through outdated, leaky distribution systems, and there is very little water recycling,” Mesgaran said.
On top of all these problems is the climate crisis. “There was a fire in the house due to mismanagement, then climate change is adding fuel,” said Madani.
Iran is now in its sixth consecutive year of drought, which is now of a scale, intensity and duration that is “unprecedented in modern times,” Madani said.
The conditions that are driving it — less rainfall and rising temperatures — would not have been possible without human-caused climate change, according to a recent analysis by the World Climate Attribution Network.
It is an anxious wait for the people of Tehran. The falls were expected to bring much-needed rain but, apart from a few isolated eruptions, they have failed to arrive.
Officials say there is no formal water rationing, but residents report reduced water pressure. Sometimes the taps run dry for a period of time.
Government communication with the public is fragmented and inconsistent, Madani said, leading to high levels of mistrust and flourishing conspiracy theories, including that foreign powers are modifying Iran’s weather and stealing clouds.
Despite the president’s statements, an evacuation appears a distant possibility. “Where do people even go?” Mesgaran asked. “The country is facing its worst economic situation, and most households cannot afford such a move.”
A ship sits on the dry bed of Lake Urmia in October 2024. – Morteza Aminoroyayi/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images
Temporary evacuation may be more likely. In the summer, authorities declared an emergency public holiday to persuade people to leave the city. “If you only have water for a few days or weeks, even a few hours of savings can make a big difference,” Madani said.
The government has also experimented with cloud seeding, where particles are injected into clouds to draw down rain or snow. However, there is little scientific consensus on how it works. “It’s a good solution for desperate governments to show they’re taking action,” Madani said.
In fact, tackling the long-term crisis will require a broad overhaul, including diversifying the economy away from water-intensive sectors such as agriculture, experts say. However, it is likely to be extremely unpopular and could lead to a major unemployment problem.
For now, officials are pinning their hopes — and directing prayers — on the arrival of rain. “In the past, people would go to the desert to pray for rain,” Mehdi Chamran, head of Tehran’s city council, said in a Reuters report, citing state media. “Maybe we shouldn’t ignore that tradition.”
But the situation is so dire that even rain is unlikely to be sufficient. Aghakouchak said, “Nature has set hard limits now. Displaced aquatic species will not return and degraded ecosystems cannot be restored quickly.
The longer the government waits for meaningful reforms, the less options remain, he said. “The water crisis is not only an environmental problem, it is linked to Iran’s social and political future.”
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