Well before the current US-Israel-Iran conflict began on Feb. 28, 2026, and the Memorandum of Understanding was signed on June 17, Iran was experiencing an acute water crisis caused by long-term precipitation decline, drought, and groundwater depletion (aspects also affecting others in the region). In November 2025, Silva Boltuc, a well-regarded international affairs specialist, put it this way:
- “Iran’s renewable water resources have declined by over one-third in two decades, pushing the country into absolute water scarcity.
- Sanctions have severely restricted access to water management technologies and financing, while government mismanagement has deepened systemic inefficiencies.
- Escalating water shortages are likely to become a major driver of domestic unrest and cross-border tensions, particularly with Afghanistan, Turkey and Iraq.”
The focus here is on the impact of the water crisis on human health, animal health, and agriculture, but it should be read in conjunction with the broader concept of One Health, addressed in an earlier article.
As Bajoghli and Nasr argue in a June 2026 Foreign Affairs article, with the tentative ceasefire in place, the “rush to publicize infrastructure reconstruction projects…signals that the government is moving toward a new social contract, one that will rest on demonstrated competence rather than ideology.”
This is a promising sign, especially if such reconstruction efforts deal with water systems. Long-term structural mismanagement, climate-driven drought, over-extraction of groundwater, and decades of agricultural policy have pushed the country into a chronic water deficit. Recent alleged wartime attacks on civilian water infrastructure — including desalination plants and pipelines — have worsened this already precarious situation.
Inside Iran’s Water Crisis
It is difficult to obtain hard data on the situation. Based on the available information, by 2025–2026, Iran’s renewable water resources were outstripped by national consumption by up to 13 billion cubic meters annually, with 31,000 villages abandoned and 27,000 more facing active shortages. Major dams had run dry, rivers disappeared, and aquifers collapsed. Tehran’s reservoirs have reached critically low levels, and Isfahan’s river, its major water source, has repeatedly dried up.
According to WRI’s Aqueduct data, Iran uses more than 80% of its renewable water resources annually. The key structural drivers include agriculture, which consumes 91% of national water withdrawals, because water-intensive crops (rice, wheat) are grown in unsuitable regions due to a national policy of food self-sufficiency intensified by sanctions; groundwater over-extraction, causing aquifer depletion; the proliferation of dams; and altered river flows.
A more recent study of drought occurrence, groundwater quality deterioration, and their interdependencies using advanced artificial intelligence (AI) methodologies found a strong correlation between groundwater quality degradation and drought periods. In short, the study supported the notion of a nationwide emergency affecting urban and rural populations, public health, agriculture, and internal migration patterns.
Urban centers
Tehran, a megacity of more than nine million, is living on the edge of its water budget. After five consecutive years of drought, the capital’s reservoirs have fallen to historic lows. The Amir Kabir Dam — one of the city’s main sources — has hovered around 8% capacity. Aging infrastructure compounds the problem, with Tehran’s pipes leaking heavily, and low pressure allows contaminants to seep in.
In poorer districts, tanker trucks become a lifeline — and a symbol of inequality, e.g., if you can pay, you can get water. Coastal cities once buffered by desalination have also been hit hard, with the slow creep of seawater into depleted aquifers worsening as freshwater pressure drops.
Rural Iran
Iran has roughly 69,000 villages. Nearly half have been abandoned in the past two decades, many because wells ran dry. Another 27,000 face active shortages. The ancient qanat system — underground channels that once carried mountain water to farms — has led to many qanats drying up, while others have collapsed due to land subsidence from over-pumping.
Further, groundwater depletion is essentially irreversible damage. Aquifers that took centuries to fill have been drained in decades. In some regions, the land has sunk by several meters, permanently reducing the aquifer’s ability to store water. Groundwater depletion is the most difficult damage to redress.
Public Health Impacts
Water scarcity is now a public health emergency caused by low water pressure, resulting in an intermittent supply and few options to provide what is needed. Rural families rely on unregulated tanker deliveries, and where available, water quality varies widely. Health professionals report rising cases of diarrheal disease, hepatitis A, and nitrate poisoning in children — the latter linked to agricultural runoff in shallow wells. Dust storms, fueled by dried lakes and degraded soils, have become a chronic respiratory hazard.
What Is Needed Now
Immediate priorities should be to prevent further collapse of desalination plants and pipelines; expand emergency water trucking to the most vulnerable villages; implement strict rationing in major cities; and launch leak-detection programs to reduce losses in aging urban networks.
Next, there should be an extensive effort to rebuild the system through modernizing irrigation from flood to drip systems; incentivizing farmers to switch from water-intensive crops; restoring qanats where feasible; expanding wastewater treatment and reuse in cities; and replacing old pipelines and upgrading pumping stations.
A range of government initiatives, policies, and adaptation programs, such as the Groundwater Resources Reclamation and Balancing Plan, the National Adaptation Program for Water Shortage, seawater desalination, and deep-water explorations, could be high on a longer-term water system agenda.
Such efforts would need to be complemented by public awareness and education campaigns in fostering responsible water use at both the individual and community levels.
Externally, cooperation with neighboring countries and regional organizations would address shared water challenges and establish collaborative efforts for sustainable water resources management.
In sum, Iran’s water crisis can be addressed, but it will be long, expensive, complex, and politically sensitive.
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Financing recovery and reconstruction
A precondition for undertaking any major water recovery effort would be a more stable conflict environment, with all parties agreeing to avoid actions that affect civilian populations, both within and outside Iran, and to respect international law and established norms recognizing that civilian infrastructure and other non-military systems are essential to a country’s functioning, and refrain from taking any action in this regard.
Undertaking needed repairs and longer-term recovery will require additional support and funding from partners and external financiers, including multiple sources such as bilateral, public, private, and international institutions acceptable to Iran. The People’s Republic of China is likely to be important going forward. “Faced with the eventual task of rebuilding after the war, Iranian leaders are more open than ever to considering China as their primary external partner for reconstruction and economic recovery,” Bajoghli and Nasr write.
A broader and more inclusive option is the establishment of an Iran One Health Recovery Fund, detailed here. Such a trust fund could be established and managed by the Islamic Development Bank (of which Iran is a member), with contributions from approved governments and private and non-public sector entities. These contributors would have no say in the selection of projects or in who implements them — nor any oversight of the resources provided.
What happens next is Iran’s decision
Iran’s water emergency is reshaping the country’s geography, economy, and politics. Iran has the technical capacity, the scientific expertise, and the historical knowledge to rebuild a sustainable water system. What it lacks, in addition to time and money, is making difficult choices for the benefit of its people. It seems that there are signs that many in the current leadership are recognizing that going forward, they need to be more responsive to Iranian society’s needs. We shall see.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com — In the Cover Photo: Dam on the Karaj River in Iran, September 1991. Cover Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
