Unprecedented water crisis in Iran: What is happening, and why? | Explained News

The water pressure would be lowered from midnight until the morning to “reduce urban leakage and create an opportunity for city reservoirs to refill,” The New York Times reported Iranian spokesperson Isa Bozorgzadeh as saying on Sunday.

President Masoud Pezeshkian, however, warned that rationing may be insufficient unless the region gets adequate rainfall soon, and said that Tehran residents may have to evacuate if the present conditions worsen. Here is everything to know.

The status of water supply in Iran

Iran has 523 large dams in operation, according to the Iranian National Committee on Large Dams. It estimated that about 99.6 per cent of the urban population and 82 per cent of the rural population have access to a drinking water supply.

Concerns of a water crisis have grown in recent months, with the Iranian Water Resources Management Company saying that 19 major dams, comprising 10 per cent of the country’s reservoirs, had run dry in October.

The five major dams supplying water to Tehran are at “critical” levels, with one nearly empty and another at less than 8 per cent, The Agence France-Presse reported on Sunday. The Amir Kabir Dam on the Karaj river was estimated to hold only 14 million cubic litres a day, lasting under two weeks, while daily water use in the province was estimated at 3 million cubic litres per day.

Similarly, in Mashhad, Iran’s holiest city, located in the north-eastern province of Razavi Khorasan, water levels at the four dams supplying water to this city have plunged below 3% according to the ISNA news agency.

Why is Iran facing a drought now?

In the most immediate sense, Iran’s drought has been triggered by low autumnal rainfall. This capped a dry summer marked by soaring temperatures and extensive power cuts.

Pezeshkian has cautioned about the impending water crisis for months, warning in July that several reservoirs, especially those supplying Tehran with drinking water, were drying out. The government had then projected that water reserves would last the province for only a few weeks.

Also to blame are the country’s water management policies. Unchecked dam construction, unsustainable agricultural practices and illegal well drilling have depleted Iran’s water reserves. In Tehran alone, the ground has sunk at 300 mm per year, about 60 times the critical threshold for infrastructure stability and safety, The New York Times reported.

Iranian-origin climate scientist, Kaveh Madani, blamed Iranian official policies for creating a scenario of “water bankruptcy” in the country. A 2016 paper authored by Madani with Amir AghaKouchak and Ali Mirchi blamed official mismanagement of water bodies, like lakes, wetlands and rivers, for causing country-wide desertification and frequent dust storms. (“Iran’s Socio-economic Drought: Challenges of a Water-Bankrupt Nation”, Kaveh Madani, Amir AghaKouchak & Ali Mirchi, Iranian Studies, 2016)

Madani said the government has brushed these failures while placing the blame squarely on climate change, as well as on Western industrial nations for contributing to the major share of global carbon emissions, according to a Reuters profile of the scientist.

Other factors at play

Madani has also connected the water crisis in Iran, as well as the country’s larger environmental issues, to the crushing global economic sanctions on the country, forcing it to turn inward.

His 2020 research paper, “Iran Under Sanctions,” noted that Iran had built its own crude oil refineries when faced with a cessation of petroleum exports, while it developed its own car industry with inefficient and polluting cars following a ban on car sales to Iran.

Given the severity of the drought, conspiracies of Iran’s neighbours “stealing” the country’s rain clouds have also been rife, a claim that Iran’s head of Iran’s atmospheric water technologies sought to dismiss.

Iran’s energy minister, Ali Abadi, also attributed Tehran’s water crisis to water leakage by the hundred-year-old water infrastructure, and even cited Iran’s conflict with Israel in June, the BBC reported. Israel had struck Tajrish in northern Tehran on June 15, which was followed by heavy flooding in the area.

How is Iran handling the water crisis?

Pezeshkian has warned about Tehran’s water crisis for months and long proposed relocating the country’s capital to the south, flanking the Persian Gulf, with “access to open waters”.

Iranian officials initiated overnight water cuts in Tehran this week, with the state-affiliated Tasnim news agency reporting that these have been in place for longer.

The Iranian Energy Ministry has also mooted cloud seeding as a means to induce rain in the immediate term. The process involves introducing particles like silver iodide into clouds to trigger rainfall. The Delhi government and IIT Kanpur attempted to induce rain in a bid to combat the drop in air quality post-monsoon via this method on October 28. It ultimately proved unsuccessful, given the absence of quintessential rain-bearing clouds, which we have explained here. Dr Gufran Beig, Founder and Project Director, SAFAR, argues that the technique itself has a limited track record of success, and even then, it may only deliver short-lived relief.