Iran faces "water bankruptcy" after decades of overpumping aquifers and dam construction
Story by Krishna Pathak, Regtechtimes, December 20, 2025
Tehran sits at the center of Iran’s water troubles. The city has grown rapidly and now holds around 10 million residents. For years, it depended on nearby dams and underground aquifers to meet daily needs. However, after several consecutive years of extreme drought, these sources can no longer keep up.
Recently, water levels in the main reservoirs serving Tehran dropped to dangerously low levels. This sharp decline forced officials to admit that the city may no longer be sustainable. As a result, plans to relocate the capital to wetter coastal regions are gaining urgency. Although such a move would take decades and cost enormous sums, water scarcity leaves few alternatives.
While low rainfall triggered the latest emergency, scientists point to deeper causes. Over the past half century, Iran built hundreds of dams to control rivers and store water. Many of these dams sit on rivers too small to support them. Instead of solving shortages, they created new problems.
Large reservoirs lose massive amounts of water through evaporation, especially in hot climates. At the same time, dams reduce downstream river flow. This change dries wetlands and limits the natural recharge of underground water. Over time, these effects weakened the entire water system.
Today, many reservoirs stand nearly empty. Rivers that once supported communities now run dry for much of the year. Wetlands that filtered water and supported wildlife have turned into dusty salt flats. Together, these changes reveal how surface water mismanagement worsened the crisis.
Deep wells drained aquifers and damaged the land
As rivers and reservoirs failed, attention shifted underground. Over the last four decades, Iran drilled more than a million deep wells. Powerful pumps pulled water from aquifers to irrigate farmland and supply cities. The goal was to achieve food self-reliance and reduce dependence on imports.
However, this strategy came at a high cost. Aquifers that took thousands of years to fill began emptying within decades. In many regions, underground water levels now drop by several feet each year. Large portions of Iran’s groundwater reserves have already disappeared.
This overpumping affects more than water supply. As aquifers drain, the ground above them collapses. This process causes land subsidence, where the surface slowly sinks. Roads crack, buildings tilt, and pipelines break. Because it happens gradually, scientists call it a “silent earthquake.”
Unlike surface damage, underground collapse cannot be fixed. Once soil layers compress, they permanently lose their ability to store water. Even heavy rainfall cannot restore that lost capacity.
Agriculture plays the largest role in this problem. Around 90 percent of Iran’s water use goes to farming. Over time, farmers drilled more wells to compensate for falling water levels. Yet the returns continued to shrink. In many areas, the amount of water brought to the surface declined even as the number of wells increased.
As a result, fields that once produced crops now lie abandoned. Rural livelihoods suffer, and food production becomes more uncertain. These outcomes show how relying on deep wells only delayed and deepened the crisis.
Iran faces "water bankruptcy" after decades of overpumping aquifers and dam construction |
