Tehran to restrict water as Iran combats drought.

Iran – (Special Correspondent / Web Desk) – Iran announced plans on Saturday to cut off water supplies to Tehran’s 10-million-strong population as it suffers its worst drought in decades.
According to local officials, rainfall in the capital is at its lowest level in a century this year, and half of Iran’s provinces have not seen a drop in months.
To preserve water, the government is preparing water cuts in Tehran—and some local news agencies have already reported taps running dry overnight in several locations.
“This will help avoid waste, even though it may cause inconvenience,” Iran’s Energy Minister Abbas Ali Abadi stated on state television.

In a speech broadcast on Friday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian had warned that Tehran might have to be evacuated if no rain falls before the end of the year.

But he gave no details about how such a vast operation would be conducted.

Tehran nestles on the southern slopes of the Alborz mountains and has hot, dry summers usually relieved by autumn rains and winter snowfall.

Tehran is by far the country’s biggest city and its inhabitants use three million cubic metres of water per day, according to local media.

The main Amir Kabir dam on the Karaj river, one of five reservoirs serving the capital, is running dry and holds only 14m cubic litres, according to Behzad Parsa, director general of the Tehran water company, cited by the official news agency IRNA.

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During the same period last year, the reservoir held 86m cubic metres, he added, but now it only has enough to maintain supplies to the Tehran region for less than two weeks.

On Saturday, official television displayed footage of numerous dams that serve the central city of Isfahan and Tabriz in the northwest, revealing much lower water levels than in previous years.
Hassan Hosseini, deputy mayor of Iran’s second-largest city, Mashhad, told the IRNA news agency on Thursday that nighttime water cuts were being explored to alleviate the water deficit.
Over the summer, in July and August, Tehran declared two public holidays to conserve water and energy, despite the fact that power outages occurred virtually daily amid the extreme temperatures.