The Global Water Crisis: How Tehran's Drought Signals a Thirsty Future for Megacities

Water has been the foundation of urban civilization throughout human history.

The earliest urban centers emerged around irrigated agricultural lands in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus valley. Civilization spread across East Asia and the Americas alongside sophisticated water management systems for crops like rice, corn, and quinoa. In today's world, the sprawling megacities defining our century would collapse without adequate water resources.

This fundamental dependency is becoming an alarming vulnerability in numerous metropolitan areas. Recent years have witnessed Cape Town and Chennai struggling through severe droughts that nearly reached crisis points. Similar water shortages affected the rapidly growing Indian cities of Bengaluru and Hyderabad last year. Now Tehran, with its massive population of approximately 15 million people, faces an even more severe emergency.

Iranian capital residents are experiencing periodic water shutoffs as authorities implement rationing measures amid a devastating five-year drought, with rainfall plummeting 96 percent below average levels. President Masoud Pezeshkian recently made the extraordinary statement that Tehran might require evacuation if the current dry spell persists. This sobering reality highlights how even relatively affluent and developed urban centers may be just a few drought seasons away from reaching "day zero" - the point where water supplies are exhausted.

Tehran's water crisis stems largely from post-1979 revolution policies prioritizing food self-sufficiency over water sustainability. By rejecting food imports in favor of domestically grown wheat and rice, Iran has depleted its aquifers and reservoirs to sustain water-intensive agriculture. The agricultural sector consumes over 90 percent of available water resources, leaving metropolitan residents with increasingly scarce supplies.

While international sanctions have constrained Iran's economic options, inefficient water management has exacerbated the crisis. Iran's per-capita water resources exceed those of Germany, India, and South Korea, which should theoretically be sufficient if properly managed. Instead, farmers continue to rely predominantly on flood irrigation methods that waste enormous amounts of water through evaporation, rather than adopting more efficient drip irrigation technologies.

Iran's trade policies further complicate matters. Despite China and India being major grain producers and participants in Iran's sanction-circumventing oil trade, food imports remain limited. China exports minimal food to Iran, while Indian rice exports face occasional import restrictions when Tehran attempts to protect domestic producers.

Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi recently acknowledged the need to import "virtual water" - essentially importing water-intensive crops from rainier regions rather than producing them domestically. This rare official recognition signals that the self-sufficiency approach is failing, and increased food imports will be necessary.

This crisis exemplifies our planet's increasingly destabilized ecological cycles. While Iran suffers from water scarcity, across the Indian Ocean, excessive monsoon rainfall has caused $20 billion in flood damage from Sri Lanka to Vietnam. Climate change has made both extreme conditions more probable. Droughts that once occurred once per century in Iran are now expected every decade. As the world's sixth-largest carbon emitter and a major oil exporter, Iran bears significant responsibility for the climate changes now threatening Tehran's habitability.

Iran isn't alone in facing water insecurity. Many Asian countries currently experiencing floods could face Tehran-like droughts in the future. A 2020 study examining water shortage risks in twelve developing world megacities ranked Tehran relatively low on the vulnerability scale. Cities like Lagos, Jakarta, Mumbai, and Kolkata need at least 50 percent more water per person than their systems can provide, while Tehran's deficit stands at a comparatively moderate 29 percent.

Evacuation is not a viable solution. Like polluted Delhi and sinking Jakarta, Tehran has grown too large to relocate, regardless of government or business preferences.

Better alternatives exist: reducing barriers to food imports to decrease pressure on local agriculture; utilizing Iran's substantial oil and gas reserves to produce irrigation infrastructure that minimizes water loss through evaporation; and leveraging trade relationships with China to transition toward renewable energy. Iran's future security ultimately depends on reducing its carbon footprint while adapting to changing hydrological realities.

The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering commodities and industrial/consumer companies, with previous reporting experience at Bloomberg News, Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and the Guardian.

The opinions expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and do not represent the views of NDTV, which assumes no responsibility for the content.