Water rationing has quietly begun in Tehran, with several neighborhoods facing nightly supply cuts without official announcement or public warning, Iranian media reported on Saturday.
Residents say water has been shut off from midnight until around 5 a.m. in recent nights.
“Despite repeated denials by officials, it appears the process of rationing has started” and citizens in parts of the capital “are deprived of water during the night,” Mizan News Agency, affiliated with the judiciary, wrote.
The daily Haft-e Sobh likewise reported sudden five-to-six-hour overnight cuts in drinking water across several districts, all without prior notice.
Reduced pressure across the city, the paper said, and declining surface and groundwater reserves had led to “serious instability” in Tehran’s water network.
The outages have lasted long enough to affect even households with backup storage tanks, according to the report.
Rising frustration
Haft-e Sobh quoted residents as saying the sudden shutdowns disrupted daily life. “When the water is cut off at night, we don’t know when it will return, so we can’t plan our use. Even tanks empty quickly,” one resident said.
President Masoud Pezeshkian warned on November 6 that if rain does not arrive by December, water will have to be rationed across Tehran, adding that prolonged drought could even force evacuation of the city.
The head of Tehran’s provincial water company recently described the capital’s situation as “red and concerning.”
Health and cost concerns
Unannounced rationing, Haft-e Sobh warned, could hinder hygiene and household routines dependent on steady water access. Unreliable supply may increase health risks in residential buildings and impose higher costs on families forced to rely on water tanks or delivery services, it added.
Meteorological data show 20 provinces have gone more than six weeks without measurable rainfall.
No precipitation has fallen in Tehran since the start of autumn, Mohammadreza Kavianpour, head of Iran’s Water Research Institute, said on Thursday warning that forecasts show the drought is likely to persist through the season.
“The risk of water scarcity in the capital must be taken very seriously,” Kavianpour said.
Tehran’s supply depends heavily on the Karaj Dam, whose remaining reserves are sufficient for only two weeks of drinking water.
Environmental experts say years of over-extraction, unscientific dam-building and poor management have pushed the country toward what some describe as “water bankruptcy.”
