Tehran Snow Reserves Down

Dwindling snow reserves in east Tehran Province are causing renewed concern, managing director of Tehran Province Water and Wastewater Company said.
“When snow reserves decline, inflow of water into dams also falls. At this time of the year, we have always had 6 to 6.5 meters of snow on the mountains around the Latyan and Lar dams in east Tehran. But now the maximum height is an alarming one meter,” Mohammadreza Bakhtiari was quoted as saying by news wires.
“We predict a difficult summer for water supply. Surface water including runoffs is limited and when snow reserves fall water inflow to the dams decline creating in its wake new challenges.”
In the first six months of the current water year (started Sept. 2020), 379 million cubic meters of water entered the five dams supplying Tehran, which was 4% less compared to the 396 mcm in the same period last year.
The five dams include Latyan, Lar, Mamlou, Taleqan and Amir Kabir. Together they can hold 2 billion cubic meters of water; however, the level now is 600 mcm.
According to Energy Ministry data, an Iranian on average uses 250 liters of water per day, while per capita water consumption in metropolises such as Tehran may exceed 300 liters.
Tehran’s population density is 973 per square kilometers, which is 20 times over and above the national average. With nearly 13.5 million people, the capital has 16.5% share of the total population. 
Tehran accounts for less than 1.1% of the country’s land area, but is home to 16.5% of the population and 45% of the industrial base.