Iran’s Water Crisis: Governance, Climate, and the Politics of Survival

Iran is facing one of its most severe environmental and socio-economic challenges: the steady decline of its water resources. The problem is not new, but its scope has reached unprecedented levels. Senior officials now acknowledge that decades of poor decisions and unchecked consumption have brought the country to the brink. President Masoud Pezeshkian recently admitted that “past mistakes” have left Iran with few options, while former vice president and head of the Department of Environment (DOE) Isa Kalantari warned that the drought poses “a more dangerous threat to Iran than Israel.”

The warning signs have been visible for years. Since 2017, Iran’s water crisis has steadily worsened, with officials repeatedly invoking “Day Zero”—the point at which a city’s supply runs dry. Once considered alarmist, the term is now part of public discourse, with nearly every province facing shortages.

The droughts of 2021 and 2022 made the danger impossible to ignore. In Hamadan, rationing left tens of thousands without drinking water for days, exposing years of overdependence on exhausted aquifers. This past summer only deepened the crisis: temperatures soared above 40°C (104°F) across most of the country, blackouts and water shortages disrupted daily life, and public offices were forced to shorten working hours. The arrival of fall offered little relief. According to the Iran Water Resources Management Company, 22 provinces recorded no rainfall at the start of the season—nearly four times the number compared with the previous year.

Consequently, nationwide rainfall over the past year dropped nearly 40 percent below the long-term average, and by almost 50 percent in Tehran. Around Tehran, major dams have reached critically low levels, forcing authorities to implement water rationing and reduce tap water pressure in homes to stretch dwindling supplies. Officials have been left looking to the sky, hoping for rain to alleviate the crisis—but to no avail. Even the president has warned that, if conditions worsen, authorities may be forced to consider evacuating parts of the city—a sobering reminder of Iran’s environmental challenges.Government responses so far—extending pipelines from nearby dams, urging conservation, and closing swimming pools and illegal wells—remain largely short-term, while experts warn that only structural reforms in agriculture, governance, and water management can prevent further deterioration.

From Qanats to Deep Wells: Unsustainable Modernization

Iran’s location in the arid and semi-arid belt has long posed challenges. For centuries, Iranians have relied on qanats—underground aqueducts that transport water with minimal evaporation—for irrigation and resource management. What has brought the country to the brink is mismanagement and flawed water governance. Over the past 50 years, land reforms, industrial expansion into desert regions, and distorted water pricing have exacerbated scarcity and undermined stability across the agricultural, industrial, and domestic sectors.

For decades, Iran prioritized engineering over governance. Dams, inter-basin transfers, and irrigation networks were built with little regard for long-term sustainability. Even before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Tehran adopted development models from water-abundant countries, locating heavy industries in the arid central plateau. After the Revolution, the pursuit of economic self-sufficiency—coupled with efforts to create jobs and appease rural constituencies—fueled water-intensive irrigation schemes and the nationwide cultivation of crops, even in regions already facing water scarcity. The consequences have been stark: provinces once considered water-rich now face chronic shortages.

The ecological cost has been severe. Lake Urmia, once the largest saltwater lake in the Middle East, has nearly disappeared. Other wetlands—Hamoun, Bakhtegan, Parishan, and Gavkhouni—have shrunk or dried up entirely. Across the country, groundwater overextraction has caused desertification and land subsidence. Around Lake Urmia alone, more than 70,000 illegal wells have been drilled for agriculture, driving one of Iran’s most extreme cases of water depletion. Moreover, high-value export crops such as pistachios and saffron consume vast quantities of water, with inefficient irrigation systems wasting up to 60 percent before it even reaches the fields. What began as a quest for agricultural independence has evolved into a slow-motion environmental collapse.

Despite this, the government continues to double down on self-sufficiency. The Seventh Development Plan (2023–2028) calls for 90 percent domestic production in staples like wheat, rice, barley, and sugar. As agriculture consumes most of the country’s water, an estimated 40 billion cubic meters are wasted annually. Subsidies for cheap energy enable unrestrained groundwater pumping, and no government has dared reform these politically sensitive policies—making the goal of self-sufficiency unrealistic.

Today, more than half of Iran’s annual water consumption—some 98 billion cubic meters—comes from groundwater, nearly 90 percent of which is used for agriculture. Only around 8 percent supports drinking water and sanitation, with the remaining 2–3 percent allocated to industry. Irrigation efficiency remains just 30 percent, among the lowest in the region, with consequences visible nationwide: almost all of Iran’s provinces experience land subsidence, a phenomenon known as a “silent earthquake” that is causing entire farmlands, villages, and urban areas to sink.

Climate Change, Mismanagement, and Geopolitics

Iran’s environmental governance remains fragmented. The Natural Resources and Watershed Management Organization has lost authority, while the Environment Organization has often been targeted and drawn into political score-settling, used as a tool to advance partisan agendas and sideline rivals. A recent example came when opponents attacked the agency over the “high costs” of its chief’s otherwise routine visit to an environmental summit in Brazil.

Geopolitical isolation amplifies these challenges. Sanctions have limited foreign investment, technology transfer, and regional cooperation, accelerating ecological decline by restricting access to modern technology and expertise. Compounding these issues, Iran shares river basins with Afghanistan, Iraq, and Turkey, making regional cooperation essential. The Helmand River dispute with Afghanistan illustrates the risks of continuing to prioritize regional military adventurism over cooperation. Under the 1972 treaty between Iran and Afghanistan, Tehran should receive 820 million cubic meters of water annually, yet only 119 million have been delivered this year. In an already unstable region, the last thing Tehran needs is water disputes that heighten tensions with its neighbors.

Amid these pressures, domestic reforms remain key. Pushing for integrated water and land management, modernized irrigation, regulated groundwater extraction, and ecological restoration of wetlands are necessary to combat Iran’s ever-growing climate catastrophe. Empowering local institutions, investing in science, and fostering public awareness are also essential for long-term resilience. Nonetheless, in the absence of coherent national planning, these demographic shifts risk exacerbating the crisis rather than resolving it.

Crisis Recognition and Pathways Forward

Water scarcity has finally entered Iran’s political discourse. Once dismissed by hardliners for political point-scoring or ignored by policymakers, the issue is now increasingly debated openly—on social media, in news outlets, and on Iran’s state media. Public campaigns promoting water conservation have also begun to gain traction.

The Seventh Development Plan (2023–2028), along with the National Knowledge-Based Food Security Document, set ambitious targets to reduce overall water use, cut agricultural groundwater withdrawals, and shrink cultivated areas. While these legal frameworks provide a basis for reform, their practical implementation remains unlikely. In practice, water consumption in 2025 declined not because of policy measures, but because of reduced rainfall and limited water availability.

With varying degrees of success, the current administration has also undertaken the challenging task of reviewing—or, in some cases, halting—projects deemed environmentally destructive. A high-profile example was the suspension of the controversial Miankaleh petrochemical project on Iran’s northern coast, which became a flashpoint between proponents of industrial development and environmentalists.

At the same time, various Iranian administrations have proposed more ambitious measures, including relocating the national capital. Analysts argue these proposals are unlikely to advance, given the enormous financial and infrastructural demands. Large-scale desalination projects to transfer water from the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman to central and eastern provinces have also been proposed and partially implemented; yet they remain prohibitively expensive, energy-intensive, and risk diverting resources from more practical reforms.

Managing Scarcity and Securing Stability

Iran stands at a crossroads. Unlike the Gulf states, it retains significant natural advantages—renewable rivers, aquifers, and seasonal rainfall—but faces systemic mismanagement, political denial, and outdated development models. With nearly 90 million people consuming roughly 100 billion cubic meters of water annually—55 percent from groundwater—the imbalance between withdrawal and replenishment is unsustainable.

Reforms in governance, consumption, and regional cooperation could stabilize the crisis. Failure, however, risks chronic urban shortages, agricultural collapse, and further climate-driven displacement. The consequences extend beyond Iran, threatening the broader Gulf. Sanctions and geopolitical pressures constrain investment and resource allocation, while political instability undermines long-term planning and implementation.

Iran faces a critical test: can it manage crises effectively and innovatively to reduce vulnerability, or will water scarcity exacerbate tensions in a country already under significant pressure? For better or worse, the answer will shape Iran’s social, economic, and environmental future for decades to come.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Gulf International Forum.