Iranian capital faces water rationing and evacuations if it doesn’t rain soon, president warns

TEHRAN — Iran’s president has warned that the capital is facing an unprecedented water and energy crisis as reservoirs have plunged to historic lows, threatening supplies of drinking water and electricity generation.

“If it doesn’t rain in Tehran by late November, we’ll have to ration water. And if it still doesn’t rain, we’ll have to evacuate Tehran,” President Masoud Pezeshkian was cited as saying by the SNN.ir semi-official news agency.

Pezeshkian described the situation as “extremely critical,” citing reports that Tehran’s dam reservoirs have fallen to their lowest level in 60 years.

The city has entered its sixth consecutive year of drought, with some dams at less than 10% of capacity.

Officials say that in the east of Tehran, the Latyan Dam — one of five key reservoirs — is only about 9% full.

“Latyan’s water storage is just 9 million cubic meters,” Deputy Energy Minister Mohammad Javanbakht said recently, calling the situation “critical.”

Tehran, a sprawling city of about 9.1 million residents within a province of roughly 14.5 million people, relies heavily on hydropower. But as rivers and wetlands have dried up, power output has plummeted, forcing some plants offline for lack of cooling water. Officials have described the water shortage as “unprecedented.”

Iran’s energy system remains highly dependent on hydropower and fossil fuels, while solar and wind together make up only a small share of total capacity. Sanctions, investor skepticism and decades of underinvestment have stalled diversification efforts.

Experts say the link between water availability and electricity generation has become increasingly evident, as hydropower output drops and thermal plants struggle with cooling shortages.

Critics also fault long-standing policies that placed water-hungry industries — including steel, cement and petrochemicals — in some of the country’s driest regions.

Lawmaker Reza Sepahvand said such “wrong policies” diverted rivers to inland factories that should have been built on the coast. Iran’s National Water and Spatial Planning organization now urges relocating those industries to coastal zones that could use desalinated water.

Meanwhile, agriculture still consumes about 80% of Iran’s freshwater, much of it through inefficient irrigation for thirsty crops in arid areas.

“We must modernize,” Agriculture Ministry official Gholamreza Gol Mohammadi warned in August, saying outdated practices are draining aquifers and worsening power outages as pumping systems fail.

The ecological toll continues to grow, dust storms increasingly blanket major cities, and the northwest, Lake Urmia — once one of the world’s largest saltwater lakes — has now effectively dried up, leaving behind vast salt flats and worsening dust storms that threaten nearby cities.