Iran: Water Crisis is a Failure of Leadership

What happened: Iran’s long-running water shortage has reached crisis levels, potentially requiring the partial evacuation of the capital.

Why it matters: Though resulting from a complex mix of factors, the ultimate cause is long-term mismanagement and institutional incompetence.

What happens next: Without persistent rainfall or successful remedial measures, the government will face increased domestic pressures, economic disruption and further erosion of public trust.

Iran is no stranger to water supply challenges, including periodic droughts or disparities in water access across its vast territory. Over 2,500 years ago, Persian kings inscribed prayers to “keep this land safe from enemies, lies and drought.” Ever since, Iranians have devised ingenious ways of managing their scarce resources, including the centuries-old Qanat system of underground waterways.

In recent decades, however, a combination of climate change-related effects, exacerbated by mismanagement and incoherent development planning, has led to periodic — and often manageable — crises becoming what scientists have termed “water bankruptcy.” In the memorable words of Ernest Hemingway, this bankruptcy happened at first gradually, then suddenly.

The gradual causes are linked to issues beyond the control of Iranian decision-makers, such as reduced precipitation due to climate change (including the driest year in 50 years) or the impact of neighboring countries on river flows. Even in these cases, however, leaders long downplayed calls from scientists to improve adaptation measures or failed to mitigate the effects through regional diplomacy.

The crisis has reached dramatic levels in recent weeks, with the government imposing rationing and nighttime water cuts in major cities. Last week, President Masoud Pezeshkian warned that authorities may soon need to evacuate parts of Tehran if rain does not come.

This tipping point follows years of acceleration that can be traced to four manmade causes:

1. Demand Growth

Rapid population growth and increased urbanization over the past four decades have compelled the state to prioritize industrial development and infrastructure modernization. From the 1990s, there was also a growing focus on engineering-led solutions to water distribution and utilization, without clear political and strategic coordination. This meant, for example, a heavy focus on building dams, in part to store the highly variable seasonal precipitation and divert water for agriculture, including lucrative commodities such as pistachios and saffron.

Over 90% of Iran’s water is used in what is essentially low-yield agriculture, with inefficient irrigation practices, to ensure high food security. Iran also prided itself on reaching engineering self-sufficiency in building dams. The construction was critical for both food and water security, but had unintended consequences, including impeding natural flows that replenished underground aquifers.

2. Public Overuse

Subsidies made water relatively cheap, leading to wasteful practices. Insufficient government support in rural or smaller urban areas led to either inefficient or unlawful draining of groundwater resources. There are reportedly over 1mn private wells directly using groundwater — half of which are illegal. This has caused land subsidence, massive sinkholes in urban areas and irreparable depletion of many underground aquifers.

3. Mismanagement and Power Dynamics

The different incentives of various institutions or actors complicate coherent decision-making. For example, the Ministry of Energy (accountable for water management) wants to ensure control over dam building for both water management and electricity generation. The Ministry of Agriculture needs to balance maximizing yields of high-value produce with providing broad support for farmers producing basic goods. A haphazard approach to irrigation, alongside broader structural challenges, has led to most Iranian farming now being fully dependent on seasonal rainfall, making it susceptible to crop failures.

Separately, the generally toothless Department of Environment faces an uphill battle to contain the negative consequences of others’ actions, including the many ecological and environmental issues that droughts and groundwater depletion have caused. This includes increased dust and sand, as well as major ecosystem losses, such as those observed around Lake Urumiyeh. Meanwhile, there is a preference for in-group loyalty over securing the highest level of competence in key positions, a trend also evident in military planning over recent decades, with disastrous consequences. This is exemplified by the selection of Mohammad Javanbakht (see Featured Personality), rather than a sectoral specialist as in the past, to oversee water affairs.

4. Incentives of Major Contractors

The drive by large industrial players and local contractors alike to expand has also caused unsustainable outcomes. For example, one of the key players pushing to position itself in this space has been the Khatam-ol-Anbia (KOA) Headquarters, the engineering arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Adding to their involvement in major infrastructure and energy, they jockeyed for position in lucrative dam construction since the 1990s.

The Iran Power Plants Projects Management Company (MAPNA, from its Persian acronym) has also lobbied heavily and competed for projects to ensure its longevity and influence. The companies need to grow, and the state needs to create jobs and build infrastructure – so the cycle continues, with little or no coherent plan or mitigation of the knock-on effects.

In our view, despite the many complexities involved, this long-running crisis and the ensuing structural “bankruptcy” are ultimately a failure of leadership. Key institutions and stakeholders failing to create a master plan — alongside a lack of foresight, narrow perspectives on individual projects and the incentives of major contractors — have worsened an already deep crisis in one of the most water-stressed countries on the planet.

Tehran has sleepwalked into a serious, chronic problem with no clear solutions in sight. While leaders are now turning to short-term fixes, including additional conservation measures, cloud-seeding and emergency re-routing of water resources, the long-term causes remain unresolved. While it is possible the current crisis will be a wake-up call on those fronts too, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets any better.