Iran is running out of water, with shrinking rivers, drying reservoirs, and collapsing groundwater forcing the country to consider relocating its capital from Tehran. This crisis did not emerge suddenly; instead, decades of poor planning, excessive water extraction, and the abandonment of ancient water systems have steadily pushed Iran toward what experts now call “water bankruptcy,” a state in which water use far exceeds natural replenishment, placing intense pressure on cities, farms, and ecosystems alike.
Tehran’s water stress reveals a national crisis
Tehran sits at the center of Iran’s water troubles. The city has grown rapidly and now holds around 10 million residents. For years, it depended on nearby dams and underground aquifers to meet daily needs. However, after several consecutive years of extreme drought, these sources can no longer keep up.
Recently, water levels in the main reservoirs serving Tehran dropped to dangerously low levels. This sharp decline forced officials to admit that the city may no longer be sustainable. As a result, plans to relocate the capital to wetter coastal regions are gaining urgency. Although such a move would take decades and cost enormous sums, water scarcity leaves few alternatives.
While low rainfall triggered the latest emergency, scientists point to deeper causes. Over the past half century, Iran built hundreds of dams to control rivers and store water. Many of these dams sit on rivers too small to support them. Instead of solving shortages, they created new problems.
Large reservoirs lose massive amounts of water through evaporation, especially in hot climates. At the same time, dams reduce downstream river flow. This change dries wetlands and limits the natural recharge of underground water. Over time, these effects weakened the entire water system.
Today, many reservoirs stand nearly empty. Rivers that once supported communities now run dry for much of the year. Wetlands that filtered water and supported wildlife have turned into dusty salt flats. Together, these changes reveal how surface water mismanagement worsened the crisis.
Deep wells drained aquifers and damaged the land
As rivers and reservoirs failed, attention shifted underground. Over the last four decades, Iran drilled more than a million deep wells. Powerful pumps pulled water from aquifers to irrigate farmland and supply cities. The goal was to achieve food self-reliance and reduce dependence on imports.
However, this strategy came at a high cost. Aquifers that took thousands of years to fill began emptying within decades. In many regions, underground water levels now drop by several feet each year. Large portions of Iran’s groundwater reserves have already disappeared.
This overpumping affects more than water supply. As aquifers drain, the ground above them collapses. This process causes land subsidence, where the surface slowly sinks. Roads crack, buildings tilt, and pipelines break. Because it happens gradually, scientists call it a “silent earthquake.”
Unlike surface damage, underground collapse cannot be fixed. Once soil layers compress, they permanently lose their ability to store water. Even heavy rainfall cannot restore that lost capacity.
Agriculture plays the largest role in this problem. Around 90 percent of Iran’s water use goes to farming. Over time, farmers drilled more wells to compensate for falling water levels. Yet the returns continued to shrink. In many areas, the amount of water brought to the surface declined even as the number of wells increased.
As a result, fields that once produced crops now lie abandoned. Rural livelihoods suffer, and food production becomes more uncertain. These outcomes show how relying on deep wells only delayed and deepened the crisis.
Abandoned qanats and shrinking recharge worsen the damage in Iran
Long before modern dams and pumps, Iran relied on an ingenious system called qanats. These underground tunnels gently guide water from mountain aquifers to valleys using gravity alone. Because they cannot extract more water than nature replaces, they operate sustainably.
Iran hosts about 70,000 qanats, many over 2,500 years old. Together, they stretch hundreds of thousands of miles underground. For centuries, they supplied cities and farms in some of the driest landscapes on Earth. Today, about half of these qanats no longer function. Poor maintenance weakened many tunnels. More importantly, deep wells lowered water tables below the qanats, leaving them dry. As water disappeared, tunnels collapsed, erasing a key part of Iran’s water heritage.
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At the same time, aquifer recharge declined sharply. Less water now seeps underground from rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Dams trap water upstream, while modern irrigation methods reduce seepage into the soil. Although these techniques improve short-term efficiency, they also prevent groundwater from refilling.
Major water bodies illustrate this loss clearly. A large lake in northwestern Iran, once among the region’s biggest, has nearly vanished. A vast wetland near the eastern border has turned into barren salt flats. These ecosystems once acted as natural reservoirs, slowly feeding water back into aquifers.
Climate change adds further stress. Warmer temperatures reduce winter snow in the mountains. Because snowmelt provides steady groundwater recharge, its decline accelerates water loss. Short, intense rains now cause flash floods instead of slow absorption into the soil.
Despite these realities, investment continues to favor large engineering projects. Desalination plants and long pipelines promise new water supplies, but they cost enormous amounts of energy and money. While they can support industry, they cannot replace lost groundwater or revive damaged ecosystems.
Iran’s water emergency reflects decades of decisions that favored rapid extraction over balance. Dry rivers, sinking land, abandoned farms, and strained cities all point to the same reality. By exhausting a treasured water resource and neglecting sustainable systems, the country now faces a severe and growing water crisis that touches every part of daily life.
