Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Tehran’s Residents Are Panicking as Taps Run Dry: Years of drought and neglect have left the city nearly unsustainable.
Foreign Policy ^ | 11/20/25 | Nik Kowsar, Alireza Nader

Posted on 11/20/2025 8:22:21 PM PST by SeekAndFind

In recent days, prolonged water cuts across Tehran have created widespread panic among the Iranian capital’s 10 million residents. Last week, after years of drought and reduced rainfall and snowfall, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned that Tehran’s residents would have to ration water—and eventually evacuate the capital—if there was no rain by late November. They’ve had years of warning, but Iran’s rulers have done nothing to resolve an increasingly existential water crisis.

A few experts have been warning about the impending doom for decades. Most Tehranis, insulated from the hardships long faced by poorer, peripheral provinces, are only now feeling what other Iranians have endured for years.

Iran has blown past ecological limits and punished natural water systems. The city of Tehran has eaten up far more than its share of water while water policy kept chasing supply rather than protecting sources such as aquifers.

After very poor rainfall for the past two years, the government rushed a tunnel-and-canal diversion from the Taleqan Dam reservoir to soothe public fears. But Taleqan cannot meet all of Tehran’s demands. Interbasin transfers don’t solve scarcity; they export Tehran’s problems and have become a case study in environmental injustice toward rural and urban Iranians.

Instead of building advanced wastewater plants to produce high-quality water for aquifer injection, authorities prioritized dams and transfers for the capital and large agricultural schemes. Most of Tehran’s water does not come from dams: Officials say more than 60 percent is pumped from groundwater. But the public largely believes otherwise, and for Tehranis, the fuller the dams, the calmer the mood. Right now, however, diminished rain and snow have left reservoirs low, adding to the sense of panic.

(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Iran; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: drought; iran; ohnoanyway; water

Click here: to donate by Credit Card

Or here: to donate by PayPal

Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794

Thank you very much and God bless you.


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041 next last
Other cities with similar rainfall shortages have found solutions: Recharge basins in Fresno, California, route water back underground. Cape Town, South Africa, built basins to capture episodic floodwater after its 2018 Day Zero scare.

But Tehran did the opposite—sealed the alluvial fans in asphalt and concrete, flushed stormwater away as “waste,” and never sustained a real managed aquifer recharge program.

1 posted on 11/20/2025 8:22:21 PM PST by SeekAndFind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Taps run dry.

Inshallah.


2 posted on 11/20/2025 8:31:44 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Real Genocide of Christians by muslims in Sudan and Nigeria gets no notice from Jew haters.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

It’s always a tough choice for Iranian leadership: build water infrastructure, or kill Jews? Seems like killing Jews has always been more important. And here we are.


3 posted on 11/20/2025 8:33:51 PM PST by coloradan (They're not the mainstream media, they're the gaslight media. It's what they do. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Sounds like a job for climate change.


4 posted on 11/20/2025 8:33:57 PM PST by crusty old prospector
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: coloradan

Funny, because true!


5 posted on 11/20/2025 8:36:03 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Real Genocide of Christians by muslims in Sudan and Nigeria gets no notice from Jew haters.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie

I don’t think the Mahdi is going to come pull their bacon out of the fire

I can’t imagine how the regime avoids implosion. Greater Teheran has about 15 million people. Every single business will close. When the people evacuate, where will they go? The whole country is in drought. Their oil revenues are so vast maybe they can avoid famine by devoting every penny to relief, but how will they transport the vast amounts of water, and where will they get it from? It’s my understanding the Caspian Sea isn’t too brackish, but it’s impossible to get the desalinization infrastructure built and running in time.

We’re looking at your proverbial “humanitarian crisis” of epic proportions. Hell, I’d be in favor of lifting sanctions on their oil because they’re going to need every dime they can lay their hands on.

We can hope, in the midst of this disaster, the people will thank the mullahs for spending all their money on weapons and killing by hanging them from lampposts as the population flees the capital


6 posted on 11/20/2025 8:50:13 PM PST by j.havenfarm (24 years on Free Republic, 12/10/24! More than 10,500 replies and still not shutting up!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
They should just institute a policy of some residents watering their lawns lawn on even number days and others on odd number days.

And no irrigation between 10 AM and 7 PM.

s/

7 posted on 11/20/2025 8:54:12 PM PST by Deaf Smith (When a Texan takes his chances, chances will be taken that's for sure.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: j.havenfarm

I agree with your post.


8 posted on 11/20/2025 8:54:34 PM PST by rlmorel (Factio Communistica Sinensis Delenda Est.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: coloradan

Imagine what could have been made with the money used for certrifuges and underground mountain facilities...

Oh, inconvenient truth...


9 posted on 11/20/2025 8:57:21 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: j.havenfarm; Uncle Miltie; crusty old prospector; coloradan; SeekAndFind

Have no fear my friends. Watch as the U.N. conducts the largest relief effort since the Berlin Airlift. Iran can not be allowed to fail. Who will kill the Jews then?


10 posted on 11/20/2025 8:58:32 PM PST by Enterprise (These people have no honor, no belief, no poetry, no art, no humor, no patriotism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: j.havenfarm
...how will they transport the vast amounts of water, and where will they get it from?

Talk to Greta, she's got a flotilla.

Or they could maybe use their own ships, if they unload all the weapons bound for Gaza...

11 posted on 11/20/2025 9:00:42 PM PST by ZOOKER
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie

I don’t care. One might believe there is a bit of judgement visiting the 8.9 million inhabitants who put up with those in charge.


12 posted on 11/20/2025 9:02:25 PM PST by healy61
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie

Allah akbar!


13 posted on 11/20/2025 9:03:05 PM PST by existentially_kuffer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: j.havenfarm
We’re looking at your proverbial “humanitarian crisis” of epic proportions. Hell, I’d be in favor of lifting sanctions on their oil because they’re going to need every dime they can lay their hands on.

They can ask China and Russia for help.

They hate us, remember?

14 posted on 11/20/2025 9:03:56 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: j.havenfarm

You know who is really good at desalinization and could help?

Hee hee ….

Israel.


15 posted on 11/20/2025 9:04:44 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Real Genocide of Christians by muslims in Sudan and Nigeria gets no notice from Jew haters.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

How do they fight fires? With fire? Bdump bah!


16 posted on 11/20/2025 9:05:13 PM PST by Kudsman (Remember the Alamo? Good. Now recall the Plaskett surrender. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Sounds not as bad as California.


17 posted on 11/20/2025 9:06:19 PM PST by Karliner (Heb 4:12 Rom 8:28 Rev 3, "...This is the end of the beginning." Churchill)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Karliner

Nah. It’s true CA needs a lot more water storage but, here at the end of the dry season, the largest reservoirs in the northern half of the state are collectively holding about 10 Million acre feet. Rule of thumb is that one acre foot is need for every four in the population, so that enough water for the state’s 40 million population. There’s widespread groundwater recharge program in place and wastewater recycling for irrigation is the norm in new developments. If we have a drought this winter we’re in trouble, but if our situation is akin to burning your finger with a match, Iran’s is akin to your whole neighborhood burning to the ground. There’s just no comparison between the two


18 posted on 11/20/2025 9:28:55 PM PST by j.havenfarm (24 years on Free Republic, 12/10/24! More than 10,500 replies and still not shutting up!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Karliner

Sorry. Left off the source:
https://cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/RescondMain


19 posted on 11/20/2025 9:29:19 PM PST by j.havenfarm (24 years on Free Republic, 12/10/24! More than 10,500 replies and still not shutting up!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie

All their money is tied up in burqa enforcement and Jew killin’.


20 posted on 11/20/2025 9:31:27 PM PST by DarrellZero
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson