Iran Must Move Capital as Tehran Water Crisis Worsens

Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is demanding a bold course correction: relocating the national capital from Tehran amid an escalating water catastrophe. He warns that continuing operations in a city of over ten million with severe water stress and sinking ground would be untenable.

Tehran currently consumes nearly a quarter of Iran’s entire water supply—a staggering imbalance as reservoir levels plunge and drought intensifies. Recent rainfall has declined dramatically, leaving dams at a fraction of their capacity and pushing the capital toward “water bankruptcy.” The strain on groundwater has also led to alarming land subsidence: certain areas are sinking by as much as 30 cm annually, amplifying infrastructure risk and rendering large swaths of the city increasingly unstable.

Pezeshkian asserts that the water crisis has outgrown conventional remedies. He argues that a new capital in the south—ideally on or near the Persian Gulf—would reduce dependence on strained supply lines, open trade pathways, and allow urban planning rooted in resource sustainability. He has already brought the plan to the country’s supreme leader and announced that detailed technical studies are underway to determine viable candidate regions.

Relocating the capital is not a new idea in Iran; past leaders mulled similar moves, but none acted decisively. Now, the combination of climate change, overuse of water, and collapsing aquifers is forcing the issue into the realm of necessity. Pezeshkian frames this not as political grandstanding, but as a last-resort measure in the face of what he calls “an ecological and civilizational crisis.” As Tehran’s situation becomes ever more dire, the move may soon strain from concept to inevitability.