WATER POLITICS

Amid continued warnings about water shortages and the drought crisis in Iran, Ahad Vazifeh, head of the National Center for Climate and Drought Crisis Management at Iran’s Meteorological Organization, said the country has turned into a “sieve” due to numerous illegal wells and excessive extraction from legal wells.

Speaking to ISNA, a regime-affiliated news agency, on Saturday, April 19, Vazifeh said: “We have turned the country into a sieve by digging numerous unauthorized wells and over-extracting from legal ones.”

The official added: “Over 80 percent of the over-extraction is from legal wells. This situation cannot continue in the long term because the volume of groundwater reservoirs is finite. The lower the water table drops, the saltier it becomes, and its quality declines.”

He noted that water shortages have worsened in major cities like Tehran, saying: “In the capital, even with normal rainfall, the city teeters on the brink of a water crisis—let alone if the rainfall is below average.”

In recent weeks and months, warnings have increased about water shortages, depleted dam capacities, and the Iranian regime’s inability to manage the drought crisis.

On April 14, Mehdi Pirhadi, head of Tehran City Council’s Health Commission, said the capital is experiencing “extreme thirst” due to reduced rainfall, and the decline in water quality has pushed people toward using bottled water.

On April 7, the state-run Ham-Mihan newspaper warned that the country is on the verge of a “full-scale water catastrophe” and, ultimately, severe drought, cautioning that the lack of water will threaten both people’s livelihoods and the nation’s very survival.

In another part of his interview with ISNA, Vazifeh said: “One of Tehran’s main challenges is that most of its drinking water comes from underground. The city consumes about 40 cubic meters of water per second, and 24 cubic meters of that comes from groundwater sources.”

He cited “lack of water flow toward plains, reduced rainfall, and excessive extraction through well digging” as causes for land subsidence in southern Tehran, saying: “Gradually, the subsidence is creeping into the city, just as it has spread from southern Isfahan into the city center.”

On April 6, MP Abolfazl Aboutorabi warned of a potential “water war” between provinces, stating: “Tehran is facing an extremely critical and dangerous situation, and provinces like Fars, Baluchestan, and other eastern regions are also dealing with similar problems.”

On March 15, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni also described Iran’s water shortage as a serious issue and urged people to “prioritize water consumption management.”

Official statistics show that around 80 percent of Iran’s groundwater resources have been used up, and dam reservoirs are in a critical state.

Experts had previously warned that Iran’s thousand-year-old groundwater reserves have been depleted within just the past three decades.