Fall marks the beginning of Iran’s wet season, however massive portions of the rustic have slightly noticed a drop because the country faces one in every of its worst droughts in many years. A number of key reservoirs are just about dry, and Tehran, the country’s capital, is dealing with an approaching “Day Zero” – when the town runs out of water.
The location is so dire, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has revived a long-debated plan to transport the capital from this metro house of 15 million other people.
Earlier administrations have floated the theory of shifting the capital however by no means carried out it. Tehran’s unbridled enlargement has created a bunch of issues, starting from persistent water tension and land subsidence to gridlocked visitors and serious air air pollution, whilst additionally heightening considerations concerning the town’s vulnerability to primary seismic hazards.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, proven in January 2025, says shifting the capital is now a need.
Iranian Presidency/AFP by the use of Getty Pictures
This time, Pezeshkian has framed relocation as a mandate, now not a decision. He warned in November 2025 that if not anything adjustments, the town may just grow to be uninhabitable.
How Iran were given to the purpose of water chapter
Drought has been a priority on this a part of the arena for millennia. A prayer by way of the Persian King Darius the Nice that was once carved in stone greater than 2,000 years in the past requested his god to offer protection to the land from invaders, famine and lies.
Alternatively, lately, Iran’s escalating water and environmental issues are the predictable consequence of many years of treating the area’s finite water assets as though they have been endless.
Iran has relied closely on water-intensive irrigation to develop meals in dry landscapes and backed water and effort use, leading to overpumping from aquifers and falling groundwater provides. The focus of financial task and employment in primary city facilities, specifically Tehran, has additionally catalyzed large migration, additional straining already overstretched water assets.
The ones and different forces have pushed Iran towards “water bankruptcy” – the purpose the place water call for completely exceeds the provision and nature can’t stay up.
Folks stroll around the dried-up Zayandeh Rud riverbed within the historical town of Isfahan, Iran, in February 2025.
Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto by the use of Getty Pictures
Iran’s centralized, top-down strategy to water governance has confirmed useless in making sure the sustainability of its water assets and in keeping up a steadiness between renewable water provide and insist, an opening that has persevered to widen.
For the reason that 1979 revolution, Iran has pursued an competitive hydraulic project, construction dams and diverting rivers to beef up sprawling towns and increasing irrigated agriculture. Pushed by way of ideological ambitions, the rustic’s focal point on meals self-sufficiency at the side of world sanctions and financial isolation, have taken a heavy toll at the country’s surroundings, specifically its water assets. Drying lakes, groundwater depletion and emerging salinity at the moment are prevalent throughout Iran, reflecting dire water safety dangers right through the rustic.
As water useful resource and environmental engineers and scientists, together with a former deputy head of Iran’s Division of Setting, we now have adopted the county’s water demanding situations for years. We see viable answers to its persistent water issues, even though none is discreet.
Falling water reserves depart Iran prone
Professionals had been caution for years that the loss of foresight to take on Iran’s water chapter drawback leaves the rustic increasingly more liable to excessive local weather stipulations.
Iranians are once more seeing the ones dangers on this newest drought.
Precipitation has been neatly under standard in 4 of the water years since 2020. That has contributed to a pointy decline in reservoir ranges. Fall 2025 has been the most up to date and driest fall on report for Tehran since 1979, trying out the resilience of its water gadget.
Town faces mounting tension on already decreased groundwater reserves, with little aid in sight with out important rainfall.
Shrinking snowpack and moving rainfall patterns make it tougher to expect how a lot water will glide in rivers and when. Emerging temperatures make the issue worse by way of boosting call for and leaving much less water within the rivers.
There’s no fast repair to get to the bottom of Tehran’s water emergency. Within the close to time period, best considerably extra rainfall and a discount in intake can be offering respite.
Panicky strikes to extend interbasin water transfers, such because the Taleqan‑to‑Tehran water switch to pump water from the Taleqan Dam, over 100 miles (166 km) away, aren’t best insufficient, they chance worsening the water provide and insist imbalance in the end. Iran has already experimented with piping water between basins, and the ones transfers have in lots of instances fueled unsustainable enlargement relatively than actual conservation, worsening water issues each within the donor and recipient basins.
The uncovered coastline at Latyan Dam presentations considerably low water ranges close to Tehran on Nov. 10, 2025. The reservoir, which gives a part of the capital’s ingesting water, has noticed a pointy decline because of extended drought and emerging call for within the area.
Bahram/Center East Pictures/AFP by the use of Getty Pictures
At its core, Tehran’s dilemma stems from a protracted mismatch between provide and insist, pushed by way of speedy inhabitants enlargement.
Whether or not relocating the political capital, as recommended by way of Pezeshkian, may just meaningfully scale back the town’s inhabitants, and therefore the water call for, is very in doubt.
The in moderation populated Makran area within the nation’s southeast, alongside the Gulf of Oman, has been discussed as a possible possibility, touted as a “lost paradise,” even though main points on how a lot of the town or inhabitants would transfer stay unclear.
In the meantime, different primary Iranian towns are dealing with equivalent water stresses, highlighting the truth that it is a national danger.
Water answers for a dry nation
The rustic must begin to decouple its economic system from water intake by way of making an investment in sectors that generate cost and employment alternatives with minimum water use.
The Kamfiruz house grows rice by way of flooding fields. It’s additionally dealing with water shortages.
Hiroon/Center East Pictures/AFP by the use of Getty Pictures
Agricultural water intake will also be lowered by way of generating higher-value, much less water-intensive vegetation, allowing for meals safety, hard work marketplace and cultural concerns. Any water financial savings may well be used to refill groundwater.
Turning into extra open to international business and uploading water-intensive vegetation, relatively than rising them, would additionally permit Iran to make use of its restricted agricultural land and water to develop a smaller set of strategic staple vegetation which might be vital for nationwide meals safety.
That’s a transition that can be conceivable provided that the rustic strikes towards a extra various economic system that permits for lowered drive at the nation’s finite assets, an possibility that turns out unrealistic below financial and world isolation.
Kaveh Madani discusses the drought tension Iran is dealing with.
City water call for may well be lowered by way of strengthening public training on conservation, limiting high-consuming makes use of reminiscent of filling non-public swimming swimming pools, and upgrading distribution infrastructure to attenuate leaks.
Handled wastewater may well be additional recycled for each ingesting and nonpotable functions, together with keeping up river flows, that are these days now not prioritized.
The place possible, different answers reminiscent of flood control for aquifer recharge, and inland groundwater desalination, will also be explored to complement provides whilst minimizing environmental hurt.
Taken in combination, those measures require daring, coordinated motion relatively than piecemeal responses.
Renewed communicate of relocating the capital alerts how environmental stresses are including to the complicated puzzle of Iran’s nationwide safety considerations. Alternatively, with out addressing the foundation reasons of the country’s water chapter, we imagine shifting the capital to ease water issues can be futile.
