Iran is grappling with a water crisis spiraling out of control, fueled by staggering inefficiencies and rampant wastage in both agriculture and urban life. Newly released figures reveal the scale of the challenge: the amount of water wasted annually now exceeds the total volume stored behind the country’s dams, signaling a structural emergency that demands immediate intervention.
According to the Statistical Center of Iran, the agricultural sector consumes 82 billion cubic meters of water each year. With supply-chain wastage in agriculture estimated at 35 percent—and supported by research indicating that 28 percent of this water loss stems directly from food-system inefficiencies—the country is effectively losing 23 billion cubic meters annually. This lost volume alone is five billion cubic meters more than the combined storage of Iran’s major dams, which currently hold less than 17 billion cubic meters.
The comparison becomes even more alarming on a regional scale. Tehran’s five main dams currently store only 277 million cubic meters of water, while annual agricultural waste reaches nearly 23 billion cubic meters. In other words, Iran loses enough water in agriculture each year to fill the capital’s dams more than 80 times over.
Official assessments place agriculture’s share of national water consumption at roughly 88 percent—far higher than earlier government estimates of 65 to 77 percent. When set against the country’s total drinking-water consumption, which stands at 8.2 billion cubic meters, agricultural waste is equal to four years’ worth of potable water use.
Urban losses add yet another strain. Data released by Tehran Water and Wastewater Company shows that 22 percent of the city’s drinking water—more than one billion cubic meters per year—is lost through leakage, faulty meters, unauthorized connections, and pipeline failures. Roughly 11 percent of this waste stems directly from aging infrastructure, with the remaining 11 percent caused by technical errors and illegal withdrawals. Tehran’s daily consumption sits at four million cubic meters, placing continuous pressure on a network that lacks the financial and managerial capacity for timely repairs.
Combined with the massive losses in agriculture, these figures underscore a mounting crisis: Iran’s rate of water consumption — and waste — has surpassed what the country’s fragile climate and overstretched infrastructure can support. The water outages already hitting the capital signal a prolonged and deepening crisis.
