Water war and shorter showers: Iranians 'storing every drop' as dams run dry

Experts blame years of resource mismanagement, compounded by continuous sanctions

Iranians picnic inside an almost dry river, which was once full, in the Fasham area, north of Tehran. EPA

“Sixteen citizens are waiting for you to close the shower,” reads a stark warning plastered all over Tehran.

It is part of a public awareness campaign to save water as Iran faces its worst shortage in decades.

The crisis has spread to 24 of the country’s 31 provinces, according to Iran’s Energy Ministry, which oversees water supply and sanitation, with the capital among the hardest-hit areas as some reservoirs are at only 7 per cent of capacity.

For many residents, the awareness campaigns are piling pressure – relentless reminders that the crisis has seeped into their daily lives in a visible, almost inescapable way.

“With two little babies, I can already feel the mess every time I want to wash them,” said a young mother in Tehran. “They keep hitting us with these warning signs to save water, but they still cut it for hours. Now we have to fill buckets to store every drop.”

Tehran’s municipality calls the programme a “tangible” push to change citizens' “excessive water habits,” who consume 250 litres of water per person daily, far above the global average of 150 litres, according to Tehran’s provincial governor Mohammad Sadeq Motamedian. With about 17 million residents out of Iran’s 92 million, authorities say even small cuts in household water use could have a meaningful impact.

But the solution goes beyond simply taking shorter showers. The agriculture sector accounts for 90 per cent of Iran's water consumption.

“Households account for only 6 per cent of the total water consumption. Even if every single citizen cuts their water use, it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Mehdi Saadatmand, thermal desalination projects manager, told The National.

“Empty dams and depleted aquifers – driven by unprecedented drought and decades of unscientific management – point to a deeper crisis with no quick solution in sight.”

‘Water war’ in the making

President Masoud Pezeshkian has acknowledged the severity of the situation. “If we cannot manage and people do not co-operate, there won’t be any water in dams by early autumn,” he said.

For Iranians, already hit by months of power cuts and the anxious limbo of a possible return to war with Israel, water rationing adds another burden. In some cities, taps stay dry for days.

The crisis is now extending beyond households, and industries are struggling as water and power shortages disrupt production.

The Agriculture Ministry recently reported an 80 per cent loss of wheat yields in rain-fed areas, with more than half a million livestock dying last year due to water shortage and feed losses, inflicting hundreds of millions of dollars in damage on farmers and herders.

The impact is snowballing into what some experts call a looming “water war,” where scarcity could spark interprovincial conflict.

In Isfahan, central Iran, anger over the dried-up Zayandehrud river escalated in April when protesters set fire to a pumping station, cutting drinking water to neighbouring Yazd province. Similar incidents have occurred elsewhere, including sabotage of pipelines.

Low water inlet of the river upstream of the Amir Kabir dam along the Karaj river in Iran's northern Alborz mountain range. AFP

“When we don’t even have drinking water here in Chaharmahal Bakhtiari, how can they send it to Yazd?” one user wrote on Instagram.

Mr Saadatmand said: “Water scarcity has become a security crisis, with 17 provinces facing severe tensions. Inter-provincial strife is inevitable if the government stays idle."

On August 12, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Iranians he would help solve their water crisis – if they overthrew their government. President Pezeshkian dismissed the offer as a “mirage,” citing Israel’s own denial of water and food to Gaza.

Too little, too late

Bordered by the Caspian Sea to the north and the Arabian Gulf to the south, Iran is arid at its core. Rainfall is scarce, most rivers are seasonal, and two-thirds of precipitation evaporates before reaching the soil.

This summer marked one of the hottest and driest on record, Mr Pezeshkian said. Urging expert solutions, he blamed the drought.

International sanctions have also blocked Iran from accessing advanced water management technologies, such as desalination and smart irrigation systems.

However, experts point to decades of mismanagement of water resources as the root cause. They trace the crisis to an 'obsession' with dams, pursued by different administrations as symbols of progress.

“Building dams without proper environmental assessment will inevitably cause problems,” warns hydrologist Mohammad Sajjad Abbasi, noting that Iran’s dams have surged from fewer than 30 before the 1979 Islamic Revolution to 647 today.

Downtown Tehran. AP

“Hydrology studies show that about 10 per cent of a dam’s reservoir evaporates each year. That means if we have ten dams of similar size, we effectively lose the equivalent of one full reservoir annually to evaporation,” he explained.

Mr Abbasi and other experts are now calling for what they term “de-damisation”, the removal of dams, as a solution. They argue it would not only revitalise key marshlands and rivers, but also restore biodiversity and even help mitigate dust storms in some areas.

“Iran’s water crisis stems from short-sighted management, failing to adapt to an arid nation where industries in desert provinces drain scarce resources. Gulf states thrive without rivers, but Iran lags despite all its rivers and access to the sea,” said Mr Saadatmand.

As a quick fix, authorities are resorting to emergency measures, including declaring public holidays to curb demand and sending tankers to deliver water to the hardest-hit villages. Officials are also accelerating a pipeline to transfer water from neighbouring cities to supply Tehran and plan cloud seeding operations to induce rainfall in arid zones.

“This crisis is not temporary, so the solutions can’t be either,” said Mr Saadatmand. “Authorities are gambling on quick fixes and praying for rain, while the dams are running out – drop by drop.”