Tehran Water Crisis Worsens, Iran Begins Cloud Seeding

Tehran continues to move closer and closer to Day Zero, a day when they will run out of water completely, but Iran has begun experimenting with cloud seeding technology to help the problem.

To dive deeper into the concept of Day Zero and how it poses a threat to many cities across the world, including Tehran, check out this article from our Climate section (member-only).

Tehran, the capital of the Middle Eastern nation of Iran, maintains a population of over 15 million people and remains the most prominent city in a region of mostly desert. While the capital experiences blistering daily highs in the summer, they used to receive consistent snowfall during the winter, allowing them to replenish their water supply every year.

However, due to climate change and rapid population growth, Tehran no longer has the resources to provide sufficient water to their citizens. 2025 is Iran’s sixth straight year of drought, with global warming and climate change bringing less and less rain to the country while increasing year-round temperatures.

In fact, this year alone, rainfall levels have dropped 40%, with reservoirs and rivers reaching dangerously low levels. When looking at the current season, Tehran has seen around 95% less rain this fall than their average, showing the effects of climate change through stark statistics– the entire city has received just 1.1 millimeters of rain for the entire year, compared to their annual average of 350 mm. Snow cover has also decreased around 99%, as November is usually Tehran's snow season but any sort of precipitation has been nonexistent for most of the year.

Meanwhile, decades of water mismanagement and over-extraction of groundwater resources have heavily depleted Tehran’s already-low water supply, with the agricultural sector also contributing to the crisis. Reservoirs are at incredibly low levels because of this mismanagement, at around 5-8% of their capacity, and one of Tehran's most crucial water sources, Lake Urmia, contains around 98% less water than it did in 1998.

Many scientists and the broader public blame the Iranian government, not climate change, for the crisis because of its predictability. American scientists warned Iran's government years ago that they were over-extracting groundwater and were bound to run out of water at the rate that they were mismanaging their water, and within four years, Tehran is now dangerously close to Day Zero.

In August, public restrooms were shut down, all public and private pools were cut off from water supply, and government offices began periodically closing down or cutting down their work hours to conserve water. Additionally, around 80% of homes have seen their water pressure reduced by almost half, and many homes are not receiving a consistent water supply at all.

However, several days ago, taps began running dry across the city, and the government of Tehran now faces the prospect of having to evacuate the entire capital. Officials have confirmed that if they fail to receive rain within the next few weeks, a widespread evacuation is highly likely– but Iran has taken a last-ditch effort to try and initiate some rainfall using cloud seeding.

Cloud seeding is a process where planes drop certain chemicals like silver iodide into clouds to enhance precipitation, creating rainfall if there is not enough of it.

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Image credit to Reuters