If It Doesn’t Rain, Tehran May Have to Be Evacuated

TEHRAN — Iran’s capital is on the brink of an unprecedented water emergency, with officials warning that Tehran could become uninhabitable if rain does not arrive soon. The head of the city council captured the desperation of the moment, saying, “In the past, people would go out to the desert to pray for rain. Perhaps we should not neglect that tradition.”

President Masoud Pezeshkian cautioned that if no rainfall comes by December, the government will begin rationing water in the capital. “Even if we do ration and it still does not rain, then we will have no water at all,” he said. “Residents would have to evacuate Tehran.”

However, not everyone agrees with the dire assessment. Former Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi dismissed the idea as “a joke,” saying that “evacuating Tehran makes no sense at all.”

Experts attribute the crisis to years of mismanagement and overuse. Decades of overbuilt dams, illegal wells, and inefficient farming have depleted Iran’s water reserves. Meanwhile, rainfall has plunged to historic lows—Tehran has seen no measurable rain this fall, reportedly the first time in a century.

The government blames a combination of factors including climate change, prior administrations, and excessive consumption. Yet the numbers tell a grim story: the city’s five main reservoirs are receiving only half the water inflow they saw last year, and roughly 10% of Iran’s major dams are effectively dry.

The manager of the Karaj Dam reported “a 92% decrease in rain compared to last year. We have only 8% of our reservoir left—and most of it is unusable and considered ‘dead.’”

Water shortages have already sparked violent protests twice in the past decade, and anxiety is spreading. Some Iranians, facing the prospect of taps running dry, have turned to conspiracy theories suggesting neighboring nations are somehow “stealing” Iran’s rain clouds.

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