Iran’s water crisis can be seen from space. How bad is the situation?

Iran has long been warned that it is facing a water crisis.

So much so that there have been discussions about moving the capital from Tehran to the southern region of Makran.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, during a speech in November, said the city, which is home to 15 million people, could soon be evacuated and that “we no longer have a choice”.

However, satellite images are now showing the extent of the catastrophe that the country is facing.

But what do we know about the water crisis in Iran? How bad is the situation?

Let’s take a closer look.

What we know about the water crisis

Iran has had six straight years of drought . Temperatures, meanwhile, have risen to over 50 degrees centigrade this past summer. Let’s begin with the capital of Tehran, which is home to millions of people – around 10 per cent of the country’s population of 92 million.

Tehran, since the 1979 revolution, has grown leaps and bounds – in both its population as well as its hunger for water. Though Tehran only has a third of the country’s freshwater resources, its thirst for water remains ravenous. The city, which used 346 million cubic metres of water in 1976, uses around 1.2 billion cubic metres of water in 2025.

The city gets most of its water from five major dams – the Lar, Latyan, Karaj (Amir Kabir), Taleqan and Mamloo. A study examining surface-water extent between June and November 2025 showed that four out of five major reservoirs showed steep decreases in the surface-water area.

The study utilised the Normalised Difference Water Index — a standard measurement for detecting water vs land via satellite images. The surface-water extent fell by over 70 per cent in Lar Dam and Latyan Dam; Taleqan Dam fell by around 28 per cent, and Amir Kabir Dam by around 20 per cent. Only the Mamloo Dam, which saw about an 8.5 per cent decrease, remained relatively stable.

It must be noted that the analysis is limited to surface area and not volume lost. So, while the decrease might look bad, the satellite images might in fact be underplaying the seriousness of the issue.

The data show that much of this water supplied to the capital is lost via leaks, theft and mismanagement prior to even reaching consumers. Iran’s Water and Wastewater Company has said around a third of all water is just frittered away. Of this, physical losses account for 15 per cent while 16 per cent comprises illegal consumption, free public use, and meter error.

Another problem is that Iran continues to subsidise water for its citizens.

As of 2024, those living in urban areas paid just 52 per cent of the actual cost of bringing the water to them. While the government has allotted the city around 130 litres a day per capita, a majority of citizens, around 70 per cent, are using as much as 200 to 400 litres.

The country also relies heavily on agriculture, which further burdens its water resources. This is due to a law that mandates around 85 per cent of food be produced domestically. Little wonder then that agriculture comprises 90 per cent of the country’s total use of water. This even as agriculture comprises just 12 per cent of Iran’s GDP and around 14 per cent of employment as of March 2025.

Here too, overexploitation and illegal wells have left their mark, with Tehran losing around 101 million cubic metres of groundwater annually.

But the crisis is not limited to the capital. Nearly two dozen provinces have not witnessed a drop of rain since the beginning of the rainy season, which starts at the end of September.

Around 10 per cent of the country’s dams have effectively run dry. In November, it was reported that nearly two dozen dams had less than a five per cent water capacity and dozens of others were on the verge of running out. Hundreds of villages in Iran are reportedly dependent on tanker trucks after local wells have run dry.

Scientists for nearly two decades have also been warning that parts of Iran are sinking due to overpumping of groundwater. This phenomenon, known as subsidence, can be lethal to aquifers, which once destroyed can never recover. Data show Iran is losing around 1.7 billion cubic metres of water annually.

How bad is the situation?

Experts say the situation is dire.

Michael Rubin, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, speaking to CSIS, called the scenario “a perfect storm of climate change and corruption”.

Amir AghaKouchak, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, told CNN that the situation in Iran is the worst it has been in decades. AghaKouchak added that water levels are declining “at a time of year when you would normally expect storage to be recovering, not collapsing further”.

Kaveh Madani, director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, said the situation has the hallmarks of a ‘long-term catastrophe’. Madani, who previously served as the deputy head of Iran’s Department of Environment, said the country is in “water bankruptcy”.

They lay much of the blame on the decisions made by the Iranian government over the years.

“For decades, policies have encouraged the expansion of irrigated agriculture in arid regions,” AghaKouchak said.

Rubin said that “it would be a mistake to look at this only through the lens of climate change”, and that wastewater mismanagement and corruption have only exacerbated things.

Officials, meanwhile, have a solution – prayer.

“In the past, people would go out to the desert to pray for rain,” said Mehdi Chamran, head of Tehran’s City Council. “Perhaps we should not neglect that tradition.”

Experts say moving to Makran, a remote area in the south near the Gulf of Oman, is no real solution either. Makran itself does not have rich and plentiful access to freshwater – most of the ideas involve desalination, which remains an expensive proposition.

They also peg the cost of uprooting the population to Makran in excess of over $100 billion (Rs 9 lakh crore). Is it too late for Tehran? For the sake of millions of people, let us hope that is not the case.

With inputs from agencies.