Tehran, Iran – Rama Habibi, deputy director of the water conservation and operation department at the Tehran Regional Water Company, issued a stark warning about the worsening water shortage crisis in the capital and its surrounding areas.
He stressed that managing water resources is now “of paramount importance” and cannot be postponed.
This comes amidst ongoing water tensions that have yet to be resolved.
Harsh scenarios for reducing consumption
Habibi revealed alarming figures, explaining that nearly 43% of Tehran province’s total water resources are allocated entirely to drinking water.
This figure makes Tehran a unique and intractable case among all the country’s provinces in terms of population consumption.
The Iranian official stressed that the only way to avoid dire scenarios is to reduce individual consumption by 15% to 20%.
He indicated that this conservation is the crucial and effective factor
in stabilizing the province’s water management system in the coming period.
Empty dams and dilapidated infrastructure
This warning comes at a time when the capital is facing a sharp and unprecedented drop in rainfall.
This has led to a decline in the reserves of major dams to critical levels.
Furthermore, with increasing pressure on groundwater and surface water resources in recent years,
water authorities have found no other recourse than to repeatedly appeal to citizens to reduce their domestic consumption.
This is occurring in the absence of strategic plans to develop desalination plants or fundamentally improve water treatment.
The policy of “rationing” and the cost to the citizen
In its efforts to manage successive infrastructure crises, the government has resorted in recent years
to forced resource rationing and power outages as temporary solutions.
Observers believe this approach has imposed heavy and direct costs on citizens and productive sectors.
Simultaneous water and electricity cuts have disrupted daily life, harmed the industrial and service sectors
, and exacerbated the suffering of small business owners.
With the arrival of summer, Tehran appears poised to face a severe water shortage.
Even stricter measures to restrict water flow are looming, presenting residents with a harsh reality
that combines climate change with the structural mismanagement of the country’s energy and water resources.
