Dry Taps, Empty Lakes, Shuttered Cities: A Water Crisis Batters Iran

NY Times ^ | July 26, 2025 | By Farnaz Fassihi, Sanam Mahoozi and Leily Nikounazar

[dennisw]

Already prone to droughts, Iran has exacerbated the problem with poor water management policies, which Mr. Pezeshkian acknowledged on Monday. Climate change, too, has played a role; the country has weathered five consecutive years of drought.

Now, the crisis has grown so extreme that the government shut down all government offices and services in Tehran and more than two dozen other cities across the country on Wednesday, creating a three-day weekend in an attempt to lower water and electricity usage. Fatemeh Mohajerani, a government spokeswoman, said cities could have similar closures once or twice a week going forward, and suggested people “go on holiday.”

Some of Iran’s deepest reservoirs have shrunk to shallow ponds. Water pressure is so low in some cities that taps in apartment buildings run dry for hours on end. People desperately search for water tanks, and hoard every drop they can find.

Temperatures are so high that one day last month a part of Iran saw a heat index of 149 degrees Fahrenheit, according to sites that track extreme weather, making it one of the hottest places on Earth. Iran is in the throes of an acute water crisis, on top of a monthslong energy shortage that has prompted daily scheduled power cuts across the country. Iranians still recovering from a 12-day war with Israel and the United States last month must now confront life without the basics.

The government announced this week that many reservoirs, particularly those that supply the capital, Tehran, with drinking water, were drying out. Water supplies for Tehran are predicted to run out in just a few weeks, officials said, pleading with the public to reduce water consumption.

[GOPJ]

The Mullahs and their families will have plenty of water...

[Berosus]

In ancient times the Iranians were geniuses at water management. They dug underground tunnels called qanats, that could carry water for miles without evaporation. And they built the air vents in ways that kept the water cold, too. Look how far they have fallen!

[SunkenCiv]

Probably the lack of water had same natural causes then as now, but of course, now there’s a larger population. In his Alex the Great docu, Michael Wood visited and described the geographical boundary (”Alexander’s Wall”) between the Middle East and Asia, with the drinkable wells on the south and west, and the brackish wells on the Asian side. Took me some spot checkin’, but it’s near the end of episode 2. 😊

[dennisw]

The old Iranians were experts at bringing irrigation water out to grow varieties of melons and watermelons.