Tehran and its 10 million people could be weeks away from running out of water

Key reservoirs are shrinking, authorities are scrambling to reduce water consumption and residents are desperately trying to conserve it to stave off catastrophe.

“If we do not make urgent decisions today, we will face a situation in the future that cannot be solved,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said at a cabinet meeting Monday.

Water is inherently short in supply in this arid nation. The difference is this crisis is hitting the capital, said Kaveh Madani, director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.

Tehran, home to around 10 million people, could run out of water altogether if consumption levels are not reduced, experts fear. “We are talking about a possible day zero within weeks,” said Madani, who previously served as the deputy head of Iran’s Department of Environment.

The roots of the crisis lie in a tangle of factors including what engineers describe as decades of poor water management and an increasing imbalance between supply and demand.