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| Iran is enduring a severe drought and some areas including Tehran, population nearly 10 million could run out of water. |
"Iran - especially its capital, Tehran - is facing an unprecedented drought this autumn, with rainfall at record lows and reservoirs nearly empty. Officials are pleading with citizens to conserve water as the crisis deepens."
President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned that if there is not enough rainfall soon, Tehran's water supply could be rationed. But he said that even rationing might not be enough to prevent a disaster."
"Iran's energy minister, Abbas Ali Abed, has warned the situation could soon force authorities to cut water supplies. 'Some nights we might decrease the water flow to zero,' he said."
Of course, the logistics of evacuating Tehran is a bit much. The city has about 9.8 million people. So where would they go?
Here's how bad it is:
Latian Dam, one of Tehran's main water sources, is down to 10 percent of its capacity. Another reservoir, Karaj Dam, which sends water to both Tehran and Alborz provinces is just as bad.
The Karaj Dam at last report was holding just eight percent of capacity, and that is "dead water" meaning it can't be used for public consumption.
Some residents say on many days they find their taps dry already. NBC News describes one man,, Irfan Ensani, 39, returning home from work at one of his two jobs to find no water in the house.
"We didn't have water for three days. The pressure was so low that nothing came out," he said.
Iran has been in drought for six years. Climate change is probably exacerbating the dry conditions. Especially since summers recently have brought record high temperatures, which accelerates evaporation.
Temperatures rose to as high as 122 degrees in Iran last summer. The heat led to power outages even as reservoirs were going dry. Rain is supposed to pick up in the autumn in Iran, but this fall there has been the driest in 50 years.
Iran's tall mountains aren't helping, either. There's practically no snow up there. Intellinews.com reports:
"According to the newly released statistics, the volume of snow recorded across the country is 98.6% lower than the same period in 2024 and 99.8% below the 120-year average -figures the experts describe as 'unprecedented decline.'"
The so-called rainy season began earlier this month, and there was very little rain until the last couple of days. Despite the drought, rain was heavy enough Monday to cause flooding in some western parts of Iran. It's too soon to tell whether that heavy rain will help ease the drought crisis.
The Iranian government also resorted to cloud seeding in recent days in an effort to coax rain from any cloud that appeared in the skies.
Climate change might have had a hand in this drought, but the government of Iran is very much to blame, as NBC and other news outlets point out.
"The prolonged drought along with years of overconsumption, an inefficient agricultural sector and mismanagement - including decades building mega-dams of questionable utility - have led to the problem, analysts say."
Ali Nazemi, an associate professor at Concordia University in Montreal was among a group of researchers who in 2021 warned Iran about its water use.
The warning was in a 2021 peer-reviewed study in the journal Scientific Reports. The research was said Iran was overdrawing groundwater in four-fifths of Iran. This was causing Iran's land to sink, and its soil was getting more salty, and its salt lakes were disappearing.
The paper said that the brewing crisis had the potential for "irreversible impacts on land and environment, threatening country's water, food, social-economic security."
The study used publicly available data for Iran's Ministry of Energy to assess the nation's groundwater situation. "After the paper was published, they took the data sets out of public access, "Nazemi said.
The drought should not have come as a surprise to the Iranian government, either. Iranian media reported in 2021 that the World Meteorological Organization was predicting much drier and hotter conditions in Iran for the following five years.
So, the government is just burying its head in the sand. At least there's plenty of sand to do the with Iran, I suppose.
Unrest has also contributed to the water shortage. Unrest is probably also going to be a result of Iran's dry taps.
Ali Abadi also blamed part of the water crisis on Iran's 12-day war with Israel. Videos after an Israeli strike on a northern Tehran neighborhood showed flooding, suggesting water infrastructure could have been damaged enough to drain reservoirs more, the BBC reported.
Tempers are rising among Iran's citizens, too, raising fears of civil unrest. Students at Tehran's Al-Zahra University have already protested against the water shortages. And there was some violence over water in Iran's Khuzestan province.
If things continue to get worse, the unrest could spiral way out of control.
Tehran is the latest big city to almost completely run out of water.
Cape Town, South Africa nearly ran out of water in 2018. Sao Paulo, Brazil almost went completely dry in 2014.
Climate change is likely increasing the severity of droughts. I imagine we'll see more cities run out of water in the coming years. If such crises are mismanaged like Iran's has been, these dry taps could lead to many, many deaths. Either through lack of water or violence caused by that lack of water.
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