This report provides an analysis of Iran’s water crisis, concluding that it is the central driver of a cascade of systemic breakdowns pushing the nation toward state failure. The crisis is not a natural disaster, but a politically engineered catastrophe, the direct result of decades of mismanagement, corruption, and flawed ideology. The primary culpability lies with the Iranian regime and its security-economic apparatus, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This is evidenced by the regime’s profound failure to adapt in a region where other arid states have successfully implemented sustainable water management strategies, and by its systematic destruction of a 3,000-year-old national legacy of water stewardship.

The foundational condition is one of “water bankruptcy”—a permanent, structural deficit where national water demand far outstrips renewable supply. This has triggered a domino effect across all critical infrastructure. An agricultural sector consuming over 90 percent of the nation’s water is collapsing, creating widespread food insecurity. The failure of the water-energy nexus has crippled hydropower, leading to a “blackout state” that paralyzes the economy. Irresponsible groundwater mining has triggered irreversible land subsidence, destroying aquifers and shattering infrastructure from below.

This primary failure has triggered a domino effect across all critical infrastructure:

• Agricultural Collapse: The agricultural sector, consuming an unsustainable 92 percent of the nation’s water, has been decimated, leaving 1.3 million farmers unemployed and putting up to 40 million people at risk of acute food insecurity within a decade.
• Energy Grid Failure: Critically low dam levels have crippled over 12,500 megawatts of hydropower capacity, creating a projected 25,000 megawatts national electricity deficit and forcing chronic, nationwide blackouts.
• Urban & Transport Decay: Cities are sinking, with aging pipes losing up to 30 percent of treated water and key transport infrastructure like airports and railways facing irreparable damage from subsidence.

Through the summer and autumn of 2025, evidence has emerged indicating a catastrophic failure of the national power grid, as definitive intelligence confirms the hydrological collapse of Tehran’s reservoir system and a presidential-level admission that the capital must be relocated confirm that the crisis has moved from a chronic condition to an acute, terminal phase. The timeline to a “Day Zero” event in major cities has compressed from years to months, and the probability of a full regime collapse and fragmentation has increased.

The human cost of this collapse is projected to be immense. Medium-case estimates for the next decade forecast 1.35 million excess deaths from heat, malnutrition, and disease, and the mass displacement of up to 18 million internal “water refugees,” with a potential cross-border outflow of 3.5 million people that would profoundly destabilize the region.

The current regime is structurally incapable of implementing the necessary reforms, as its survival is intertwined with the corrupt economic model that profits from the crisis.

The only viable path to avoid this imminent humanitarian catastrophe is a fundamental political transition that enables a new, transparent government to partner with the global community. The core of this report’s strategy is the immediate formation of an International Water Recovery Consortium, an operational body comprising the world’s foremost experts in water recovery strategies. This blueprint details a phased strategy with specific roles for international partners: Israel for technology and governance; Australia for data and allocation; Singapore for urban resilience and pricing; the Netherlands for local water management; and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for financing.

The Anatomy of a Man-Made Crisis:

Engineering “Water Bankruptcy”: A Legacy of Mismanagement

The core of Iran’s predicament is a state of permanent “water bankruptcy,” a term signifying a structural insolvency where national demand outstrips the natural, renewable supply. This is not a cyclical drought that can be weathered, but a terminal condition engineered by decades of disastrous policy choices. The data supporting this diagnosis is unequivocal. Iran’s per capita renewable internal freshwater resources have plummeted from a stable 5,845 cubic meters (~206,000 cubic feet) per year in 1961 to just 1,484 in 2019, pushing the nation below the international water stress threshold of 1,700 and toward the absolute scarcity line of 1,000. The country now withdraws more than 100 percent of its renewable water resources annually, effectively mining its finite water inheritance to meet current demand.

This bankruptcy is the outcome of specific and deliberate policy failures. Central to this has been the regime’s

1: Iranian Groundwater Depletion Over Time

ideological commitment to a “resistance economy” and agricultural self-sufficiency. This doctrine, intended to insulate the country from external pressures, has driven the unsustainable consumption of over 90 percent of the nation’s water by a notably inefficient agricultural sector, where up to 70 percent of water is lost in irrigation before benefiting a crop. This policy was compounded by populist measures, such as the government’s 2010 decision to legalize some 30,000 previously illegal groundwater wells, a move that directly accelerated the depletion of aquifers.

The institutional framework for managing water is paralyzed. Multiple ministries and organizations, including the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Agriculture, have overlapping and often conflicting responsibilities, with no single empowered authority capable of enforcing a coherent national strategy. This modern failure stands in stark contrast to Iran’s historical legacy of sophisticated water management.

For nearly 3,000 years, Persian civilization thrived in an arid climate through the ingenious system of qanats—hand-dug underground aqueducts that tap into the water table and transport water via gravity over many kilometers.This technology, recognized by UNESCO, allowed for the establishment of permanent settlements and flourishing agriculture in the heart of Iran’s deserts, demonstrating a deep, historical understanding of sustainable water use. The qanat system testifies to

2: An ancient walled desert garden maintained using water from the Persian Qanat system

the fact that Iran’s climate has always been arid and that its people developed the means to live within those ecological limits. The current crisis is therefore a failure not of geography, but of governance.

The modern regime has not only abandoned this legacy, but has actively destroyed it; it is estimated that at least half of Iran’s 70,000 qanats have been destroyed in the last 50 years as modern, mechanized wells lower the water table below their ancient channels. This destruction of a national heritage symbolizes the regime’s sharp break with a tradition of stewardship, replacing it with a short-sighted and destructive model of resource extraction.

Any climatic factors at work are a powerful “crisis accelerant,” not the root cause. Long-term historical climate data confirms that central and southern Iran have always experienced an arid climate with significant extremes. If correct, projections of a mean annual temperature increase between 2.6° and 5.2° and a potential 35 percent decrease in average precipitation would reduce the timeline to total collapse. However, some northern regions, such as the area around Rasht near the Caspian Sea, have seen stable or even slightly positive rainfall trends in recent decades, highlighting the regional complexities that a national mismanagement strategy fails to address.

The regime’s narrative, which consistently blames climate change and international sanctions for the shortages, is a deliberate political diversion. It is a strategic communication tool designed to obscure the primary culpability of its own policies and the corrupt institutions that have profited from this unnecessary disaster.

The Political Economy of Collapse: The “Water Mafia” and the IRGC

At the heart of Iran’s water mismanagement lies a powerful and politically connected network that journalists, scientists, and activists have dubbed the “water mafia.” This opaque alliance of government officials, consulting engineers, and influential contractors thrives on the promotion of ecologically damaging megaprojects, operating with minimal oversight to push for unchecked dam-building and wasteful inter-basin water transfers under the guise of “development.”

The central actor within this network is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Through its massive construction conglomerate, Khatam al-Anbiya, the IRGC has established a near-monopoly over Iran’s water infrastructure sector, securing lucrative, often non-competitive state contracts for dams and water diversion tunnels. These projects serve as a critical source of revenue for the IRGC, a mechanism for political patronage, and a tool for social control. This creates a fundamental conflict of interest where the entity responsible for national security is also profiting from activities that increase the nation’s vulnerability. The crisis, therefore, is not simply a policy failure to be corrected; it is a successful and highly profitable business model for the regime’s most powerful hardline faction.

The Gotvand Dam on the Karun River in Khuzestan province stands as the most damning indictment of this

3: A graph of Dam Construction vs Water Supply

system at work. Constructed by IRGC-affiliated firms, the dam was built directly on top of the Gachsaran salt formation, a massive salt dome, despite explicit warnings from geologists that doing so would create a saline catastrophe. The predictable result has been a man-made environmental disaster. The dam’s reservoir has become a permanent “brine factory,” continuously dissolving the salt dome and increasing the salinity of the Karun River by an estimated 35 percent. This hyper-saline water flows downstream, poisoning agricultural lands, destroying an estimated 400,000 date palms, and rendering water unusable for drinking or irrigation for millions in Iran’s most important river system. The project, initially budgeted at $1.5 billion, ballooned to $3.3 billion with no public accountability, illustrating how scientifically unsound and financially opaque projects are pushed through for the benefit of a small elite.

This dynamic creates a perverse feedback loop. The IRGC and its network benefit from creating the crisis through disastrous projects and then position themselves as the sole purveyors of the “solution”— typically more grandiose, expensive, and ecologically damaging schemes like large-scale desalination and further water transfers. This ensures a perpetual flow of state funds into the coffers of the water mafia, entrenching their power while accelerating the nation’s environmental collapse. This business model reached its logical conclusion in October 2025, when President Pezeshkian announced that the capital must be relocated from Tehran. This proposal for a multi-decade, $77-100 billion megaproject is not a serious solution to an immediate emergency but the ultimate manifestation of the water mafia’s corrupt logic: engineer a crisis so profound that the only “solution” is the largest and most profitable construction project in the nation’s history, one which the IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya is uniquely positioned to execute.

The Domino Effect: A Cascade of Systemic Failures

Iran’s water bankruptcy is the prime mover in a devastating chain reaction, a hydrological disaster whose effects are destroying the foundations of the nation’s critical infrastructure. The failure to manage water has created a cascade of secondary and tertiary crises that are crippling the power grid, fracturing transportation networks, paralyzing urban services, and strangling the economy. Each failure amplifies the others, creating a self-reinforcing downward spiral that is pushing the Iranian state toward functional collapse.

Agricultural Collapse and the Onset of Food Insecurity

The agricultural sector is the first and most significant casualty of Iran’s water bankruptcy. Its inefficient use of water is both the primary cause of the crisis and the reason for its own demise. Consuming over 90 percent of the nation’s available water so inefficiently that only 30-37 percent of water used for irrigation actually benefits crops, the approach was designed for failure in an arid land.

The consequences of this flawed model are now becoming terminal. Econometric studies project a direct relationship between scarcity and production: for every 1 percent increase in water scarcity, a corresponding 0.404 percent

4: National water consumption by sector

decrease in agricultural output is projected. The human cost is measured in lost livelihoods and hunger. The sector is hemorrhaging jobs at an accelerating rate. Between 2015 and 2022 alone, an estimated 1.3 million people—one-quarter of all Iranian farmers—lost their jobs as a direct consequence of escalating water scarcity.

This decline in domestic production, compounded by rampant inflation, has left millions hungry. Over 29 percent of rural households were already classified as prone to food insecurity, and the World Food Programme (WFP) is providing life-saving assistance in the country. This trajectory points toward a full-blown public health emergency, with acute malnutrition becoming widespread and localized famine conditions a high-probability outcome, particularly in drought-afflicted provinces like South Khorasan and Sistan and Baluchestan. The events of summer 2025 provided a stark validation of this cascade. The failure of the energy grid, itself a product of the water crisis, rebounded into the agricultural sector. Farmers across the country reported power cuts to their irrigation wells lasting up to five hours daily. In Kerman province, officials reported that the blackouts damaged 60 percent of the region’s orchards and contributed to a 21,000-ton drop in date production, demonstrating in real-time how the water crisis triggers an energy crisis that in turn exacerbates the food security emergency.

The “Blackout State”: Failure of the Water-Energy Nexus

The second major cascade of collapse is the failure of the national energy grid, which is inextricably linked to the water crisis. Iran’s electricity supply is dependent on its approximately 12,500 megawatts (MW) of installed hydroelectric capacity. With dam reservoirs at historically low levels—the five dams supplying Tehran held just 15 percent of their capacity, with the vital Lar Dam at 1 percent in early 2025—the country’s ability to generate hydropower has been crippled.

This situation has created a vicious cycle, or a “death spiral.” The lack of water cripples hydropower generation, and

5: Hydropower Generation Collapse (TWh/terawatt-hours)

the resulting blackouts disable the electric pumps that deliver municipal water and power sewage treatment plants, thus directly worsening the water and sanitation crisis. This theoretical model became a fully realized reality during the “Summer of Collapse” in 2025. Widespread, scheduled power outages, often lasting between two and four hours daily, became a feature of life in major cities. The national electricity deficit ballooned to a projected 25,000 MW.

The strain on the grid grew so severe that authorities were forced to order the nationwide closure of government offices and banks to reduce demand. In a stunning admission, Energy Minister Abbas Ali-Abadi confirmed that over 15,000 MW of the country’s thermal power plant capacity are “worn out” and have lost their useful life due to decades of neglect.

6: The Iranian Unemployment Crisis

The consequence for the Iranian population is the emergence of a “blackout state.” These power outages paralyze what remains of the industrial and commercial sectors, disable essential public infrastructure, and create a lethal

combination with extreme heat. The inability to power air conditioning or fans during heatwaves removes the population’s last line of defense against life-threatening temperatures.

Economically, the Iran Chamber of Commerce estimated daily losses from outages reached nearly 18 trillion tomans, with key industries like steel and cement facing production cuts of up to 50 percent. Over 80,000 industrial workers were furloughed without pay over the summer, injecting further volatility into an already fragile social fabric.

The Sinking Nation: Irreversible Destruction of National Foundations

Beneath the visible crisis of empty dams and darkened cities lies a more permanent catastrophe: the destruction of Iran’s physical backbone. Decades of relentless over-extraction have led to the depletion of what hydrologists have called “1,000 years’ worth of groundwater reserves in just three decades.” This is not merely an overdraft; it is the permanent destruction of the nation’s foundational water storage capacity.

This unsustainable pumping has triggered massive and widespread land subsidence. As aquifers are drained, the underlying geological structures compact and the land above sinks at rates that are among the highest in the world. Over 90,000 square kilometers (~35,000 square miles) are affected. In some agricultural plains, the ground is collapsing by more than 35 centimeters (~14 inches) per year.

This process of aquifer compaction is essentially irreversible. The ground, once collapsed, cannot be “re-inflated” to store water again. This means that even if Iran were to experience decades of above-average rainfall, its capacity to store that water underground has been permanently diminished. The regime has not only spent its water savings, but has destroyed the bank vault itself. This dire assessment was publicly validated by President Pezeshkian on October 2,

7: Sinking Cities

2025, when he stated, “In some areas, the land is subsiding by up to 30 cm [11.8 inches] per year. This is a disaster and shows that the water beneath our feet is running out.”

This subsidence is inflicting irreparable damage on the physical arteries of the Iranian economy. Key transport hubs are sinking, including Imam Khomeini International Airport at a rate of 5 centimeters (~2 inches) per year. Within Tehran, 14 metro stations are at risk, and the national railway network requires constant repairs to counteract the effects of the shifting earth. In cities, this differential settlement warps and breaks aging underground pipes, accelerating the decay of municipal water systems that already lose an estimated 30 percent of their treated water to leaks.

Beyond the tangible collapse of infrastructure, the water crisis is inflicting a deeper wound: the physical destruction of Iran’s cultural and historical heritage. Land subsidence is causing irreversible structural damage to some of humanity’s most treasured ancient sites. In the plain housing the ruins of Persepolis, the ground is sinking by as much as 20 to 30 centimeters (~8 to 11 inches) annually, tearing apart ancillary structures with deep geological fissures. The historic city of Isfahan is also subsiding rapidly, endangering its iconic mosques, palaces, and bridges. For many Iranians, the regime’s inability to protect these powerful symbols of Persian civilization is seen as a profound failure of stewardship, fueling a narrative that it is not only incompetent but also destructive of the nation’s true legacy.

Table 1: The Water-Driven Cascade of Systemic Failure

The Human Cost of Collapse

The systemic failures detailed in the preceding analysis translate into concrete and devastating human costs. This section quantifies the human toll of the crisis, tracking the numbers of people at risk of starvation, death, and displacement as a direct result of the cascading collapse.

A Multi-Vector Public Health Emergency

The convergence of a bankrupt water system, a collapsing food supply, and a failing power grid is precipitating a multi-vector public health catastrophe. The human cost will be measured in a dramatic rise in excess mortality from heat, the re-emergence of deadly epidemics, and the long-term effects of widespread malnutrition.

Heat is rapidly becoming one of the most direct and lethal threats to the Iranian population. Epidemiological studies

8: An emerging public health crisis

have already established a clear link between heatwaves and increased mortality. A comprehensive meta-analysis for Iran found that heatwaves increase the relative risk of all-cause mortality by 23 percent compared to non-heatwave periods. This risk is escalating dramatically. The 2024 Lancet Countdown report reveals a 168 percent increase in the number of heatwave days experienced by vulnerable populations over the past decade. When combined with the failure of the power grid to support essential cooling, the conditions are set for a massive increase in excess mortality from heatstroke, dehydration, and cardiovascular failure.

The second vector of this catastrophe will be the return of epidemic diseases. As municipal water systems fail, populations are forced to rely on unsafe sources, creating ideal conditions for waterborne pathogens. Iran has a documented history of major cholera epidemics linked to poor sanitation, particularly in vulnerable provinces like Sistan Baluchestan and Khuzestan. The Lancet Countdown notes a 22.7 percent increase in the population living near coastal waters with conditions suitable for Vibrio cholerae transmission. The projection is stark: major outbreaks of cholera, typhoid, and dysentery are highly probable within the next five years.

This human toll is also directly inflicted by the state. As citizens are driven into the streets by unbearable hardship, their “survival protests” are met with lethal force. In the July 2021 “Uprising of the Thirsty” in Khuzestan, security forces used live ammunition to crush demonstrations, killing at least 11 people. This pattern was repeated during the summer of 2025, when protests erupted in multiple cities with citizens chanting “Water, electricity, life—our absolute rights.” The state responded with repression, firing tear gas and bringing national security charges against activists. These deaths and detentions are a direct, quantifiable human cost of a crisis caused by the regime itself. Looking ahead, the cumulative toll is staggering. A 10-year forecast estimates a medium-case scenario of 1,350,000 cumulative excess deaths directly attributable to the cascading crises. This includes an estimated 600,000 deaths from heat-related illness, 500,000 from malnutrition and starvation, and 250,000 from waterborne diseases.

The Great Exodus: Mass Displacement and Regional Destabilization

The cumulative effect of collapsing agricultural, energy, and public health systems will be to render large swathes of Iran uninhabitable, triggering human movement on a scale not seen in the country’s modern history. This exodus is already underway. The Iranian government itself has acknowledged that approximately 800,000 Iranians have been internally displaced by climate-related issues, including drought and desertification. This is not a temporary emergency but a permanent migration, creating a vast population of internal “water refugees.”

The potential scale of future displacement is staggering. The June 2025 report projected a medium-case scenario of

9: Mass Exodus

12 million Iranians internally displaced by 2035. However, the events of summer and autumn 2025 require a sharp upward revision of this threat assessment. In July 2025, President Pezeshkian himself warned that the water crisis could force as many as 15 million residents to flee Tehran alone. While this may have been intended as hyperbole at the time, his subsequent October statement that the capital must be moved lends this dire warning a new and terrifying gravity. The prospect of a megacity of over 10 million people becoming functionally uninhabitable introduces a displacement driver of an unprecedented magnitude.

As internal coping mechanisms are exhausted and state control erodes, a significant number of people will be forced to cross international borders. The original medium-case projection forecast a cross-border outflow of 3.5 million refugees by 2035. A state-failure scenario centered on the collapse of Tehran would likely push this number significantly higher, creating a refugee crisis that would dwarf previous regional emergencies, including the Syrian civil war. The stability of Iran’s neighbors is directly and immediately threatened. Iraq is already grappling with its own severe water crisis, and Turkey is managing one of the world’s largest refugee populations. There is no evidence that any regional government or international body has begun contingency planning for a humanitarian and security event of this magnitude.

Table 2: The Quantified Human Cost of Collapse (2025-2035 Projections)

The Political Breaking Point: An Accelerated Timeline to State Failure

The convergence of systemic failures and mass human suffering is creating intolerable pressure on the Iranian political system. The foundational water crisis is evolving into a crisis of state legitimacy, eroding the regime’s authority and activating the country’s deepest ethnic and social fault lines. The events of mid- to late-2025 demonstrate a dramatic compression of the timeline to systemic failure, moving the nation from a chronic crisis to a terminal phase.

An Accelerated Timeline to “Day Zero”

The trajectory of Iran’s water-driven collapse is governed by physical thresholds and feedback loops that are pushing the nation toward distinct phases of systemic failure on a discernible timeline. The irreversibility of “aquifer death” through land subsidence locks the nation into a state of perpetual water scarcity regardless of future political changes or rainfall patterns.

The crisis has accelerated from a chronic, decade-long trajectory to an acute, seasonal emergency. Throughout the summer, Iranian state media began issuing dire warnings that Tehran could reach “Day Zero”—the point at which the municipal water network can no longer provide piped water—within a matter of weeks. In late July, President Pezeshkian himself publicly warned that Tehran’s reservoirs could run completely dry by September or October if consumption was not managed.

The definitive confirmation of this terminal stage came in the form of hard intelligence. The September 30, 2025, “Iran Update” from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) revealed that water reserves in the Karaj Dam—one of the five critical dams supplying Tehran—plummeted from 111 million cubic meters (mcm) (~4 billion cubic feet) in September 2024 to a mere 28 mcm (~989 million cubic feet) in September 2025. This represents a staggering 75 percent loss in a single year. The dam, now only 15 percent full, is incapable of generating electricity for Tehran, confirming the direct link between the water crisis and the capital’s power outages. This data, combined with official statements that Tehran’s total surface water reserves were down 227 mcm (~8 billion cubic feet) year-over-year, paints an undeniable picture of a comprehensive, systemic failure of the capital’s entire surface water infrastructure.

The “Day Zero Decade” has become the “Day Zero Season.” The president’s subsequent declaration on October 2 that relocating the capital is “not a choice; it is a mandate” is a de facto admission that “Day Zero” for Tehran is inevitable. The “Immediate Emergency” phase (2025-2026) described in the June report is not a future event to be monitored; it is the current, fully realized reality on the ground.

Table 3: Revised Timelines for Systemic Failure (October 2025 Assessment)

The End Game: Re-assessing Scenarios for Iran’s Future

The accelerated timeline and the regime’s political response necessitate a formal re-weighting of the probabilities for the three potential end-game scenarios outlined in the June 2025 report.

Scenario 1: Regime Collapse and Fragmentation (Probability Increased to High). This is now the most likely outcome. The President’s public admission that the state can no longer guarantee the viability of its own capital is a profound and likely irreversible blow to the regime’s prestige and claim to competence. It is a signal to the entire population that the state has failed in its most basic function. This, combined with the escalating “survival protests” and the immense pressure on a security apparatus that must now suppress a thirsty and desperate populace, dramatically increases the chances of a systemic breakdown. An order to fire on families demanding water could easily trigger a crisis of conscience and the fracturing of security force loyalty, leading to a rapid collapse of central control and the fragmentation of the country along its hydro-ethnic fault lines.

Scenario 2: Coercive Muddle-Through (Viability Decreased to Low-Medium). While the IRGC’s capacity for violence remains formidable, the physical realities of the water crisis make this scenario far less sustainable than it was four months ago. A “hollow state” cannot function indefinitely if its capital city has no water. The regime can shoot protestors, but it cannot shoot water into the pipes. The sheer logistical and physical unsustainability of Tehran makes a long-term “muddle-through” scenario centered on the current capital increasingly improbable. The President’s announcement of a capital relocation is, in itself, a tacit admission that the “muddle-through” option for Tehran has already failed.

Scenario 3: Unlikely Reform and Stabilization (Probability Nearing Zero). The regime’s response to the crisis has definitively foreclosed this possibility. The proposed “solution”—a fantastical and corrupt multi-billion-dollar capital relocation project that will enrich the IRGC—is the diametric opposite of the painful, science-based reforms required for national survival (e.g., dismantling the IRGC’s economic empire, ending ruinous subsidies, empowering an independent water authority). This move confirms that the regime is structurally incapable of genuine reform and will instead double down on its failed, self-enriching model until the point of total collapse. The proposal is not a policy to solve a problem, but a political endgame that reveals the regime’s internal logic: it would rather see the country collapse while its hardline core profits from the process than implement the reforms necessary for national survival.

A Blueprint for National Revival

The preceding analysis establishes a terminal diagnosis of Iran’s water crisis and the political bankruptcy of the incumbent regime. This final section shifts from diagnosis to prescription, outlining a detailed, actionable blueprint for national revival. This is not a plan for the current government, which is a structural barrier to survival, but a roadmap for a future, post-transition Iranian government prepared to make the difficult choices necessary to pull the nation back from the brink.

The International Water Recovery Consortium: A Design for Survival

The success of this recovery plan is entirely contingent on a political transition that brings to power a new Iranian government defined by transparency, accountability, and a strategic embrace of international partnership. The centerpiece of the strategy is the immediate formation of the International Water Recovery Consortium. This would not be a typical donor conference, but an operational alliance of nations with proven, world-class expertise in every facet of water management, whose experts would work hand-in-glove with new Iranian institutions to co-design and implement the recovery. Each partner has been selected for a specific, synergistic role:

• Technology & Governance - Israel: Israel would lead the rapid deployment of cutting-edge technology, overseeing the planning of large-scale seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plants and a national wastewater recycling program with a target of 90 percent reuse for agriculture. Critically, experts from Israel’s Water Authority (IWA) would provide the blueprint for a new, unified, and politically independent “Iranian Water Authority,” consolidating all planning, regulatory, and pricing authority under one roof.
• Data & Allocation - Australia: Australia would implement the core principles of its successful Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This would involve creating a national water entitlement register and establishing Sustainable Diversion Limits (SDLs)—legally enforceable caps on water extraction for every one of Iran’s basins, underpinned by modern metering and public transparency.
• Urban Resilience & Pricing - Singapore: Experts from Singapore’s Public Utilities Board (PUB) would design and implement a “Four National Taps” strategy for major cities, integrating all water sources under a single, optimized system. Their most critical contribution would be designing a new national water tariff structure that eliminates destructive subsidies and moves toward full-cost recovery, while incorporating “lifeline” rates to protect the poor.
• Local Governance - The Netherlands: Dutch specialists would provide the model for establishing a network of regional, basin-level Stakeholder Water Boards, modeled on their centuries-old waterschappen system. This would replace Iran’s top-down, opaque system with a democratic model where local stakeholders elect representatives to manage their own water resources.
• Finance & Capital Projects - Saudi Arabia & GCC Partners: Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners would provide the anchor capital for the multi-billion-dollar infrastructure revitalization, particularly massive desalination and solar energy corridors. This would be framed not as aid, but as a critical strategic investment in regional stability, structured using sophisticated Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and Joint Venture (JV) models.

Table 4: The International Water Recovery Consortium - Mandates and Contributions

Contrasting Fates: Why Other Regional States Have Adapted

The argument that Iran’s crisis is primarily political, not environmental, is substantiated by a comparative analysis of how other arid nations in the region have successfully managed water scarcity. The divergent outcomes between Iran and its neighbors prove that the primary determinant of water security in the Middle East is governance and political will.

Israel Case Study: Facing extreme natural water scarcity, Israel has transformed its water economy through a combination of institutional reform, technological innovation, and massive investment. Today, it has achieved water security. Key to its success was the 1959 Water Law, which nationalized all water resources and established a single, technocratic Israel Water Authority (IWA) to manage them, insulating decision-making from short-term political pressures. This centralized governance enabled a coherent national strategy focused on two pillars: creating new water sources and managing demand. Israel now desalinates over 80 percent of its domestic urban water from the Mediterranean through some of the world’s most efficient reverse osmosis plants. It is the global leader in wastewater recycling, treating nearly 90 percent of its effluent to a high standard and reusing it for agriculture. This strategy, combined with a national water conveyance system and realistic water pricing, has allowed it to secure its water future.

10: Israel Central Filtration Center

Saudi Arabia Case Study: As one of the world’s driest countries, Saudi Arabia has embarked on an ambitious, capital-intensive strategy under its Vision 2030 to secure its water supply. The Kingdom is the world’s largest producer of desalinated water, with a daily output exceeding 11.1 million cubic meters (~391 million cubic feet), and plans to meet 90 percent of its urban water demand through desalination by 2030. Its National Water Strategy 2030 provides a comprehensive framework with 10 strategic programs focused on integrated resource management, demand management, and private sector participation. Recognizing the unsustainability of its agricultural water consumption (which accounts for ~84 percent of freshwater use), the Kingdom is investing heavily in wastewater reuse. It is preparing to initiate 96 projects with a $4 billion investment to enhance reuse infrastructure, aiming to reuse 70 percent of treated water by 2030. The strategy involves a shift to modern irrigation technologies, a reduction in network water losses, and the establishment of new state-owned enterprises to manage the entire water transmission and distribution system efficiently.

11:Saudi Arabia’s 2030 water system

The success of these two nations, which face natural conditions as or more severe than Iran’s, highlights the stark contrast in governance. While Israel and Saudi Arabia have embraced centralized technocratic management, advanced technology, and strategic investment, Iran’s approach has been defined by fragmented and politicized authority (the “water mafia”), a reliance on destructive and outdated megaprojects, chronic underinvestment, and populist subsidies that encourage waste. The different outcomes are not a result of climate or geology, but of political choice.

A Phased Strategy for Recovery

The recovery plan would be executed in three distinct but overlapping phases, moving from emergency stabilization to deep structural reform and finally to large-scale infrastructure modernization.

Phase I (First 100 Days): Emergency Triage and Mobilization. The first 100 days of a new government will be critical. The focus must be on immediate stabilization and mobilizing the Consortium. This involves formally inviting the partners, dispatching rapid assessment teams to the highest-risk basins, establishing an “Iran Water Recovery Fund” with GCC and international financial institution backing, and passing an emergency “Water Recovery Act” to establish the legal basis for the new Iranian Water Authority and the Consortium’s operational mandate.

Phase II (Years 1-3): Co-designed Structural Reforms. With the immediate emergency stabilized, this phase focuses on implementing the deep reforms necessary for long-term sustainability. The new Iranian Water Authority would be formally established with Israeli experts in advisory roles. The first regional Stakeholder Water Boards would be elected with Dutch oversight. The National Water Accounting System, led by Australian experts, would be rolled out with modern meters and legally binding extraction limits. New urban water tariffs, designed with Singaporean experts, would be phased in. Finally, agricultural restructuring would begin with crop-shifting incentives and the first water rights buy-back tenders.

Phase III (Years 3-7+): Partnership-Led Infrastructure Modernization. This phase marks the large-scale physical rebuilding of Iran’s water infrastructure. Procurement and construction would begin on the first wave of large-scale desalination plants and associated solar power fields, managed through transparent international tenders with joint oversight. A massive, state-supported program would roll out advanced drip irrigation technology to farms nationwide, with training from Israeli agronomists. A network of modern wastewater recycling plants would be constructed near all major cities to reach the national target of 90 percent reuse for agriculture, freeing up vast quantities of fresh water for potable use.

Conclusion and Strategic Recommendations

Conclusion: An Unfolding State Failure

The evidence presented in this report leads to an inescapable conclusion: Iran is on an accelerated trajectory toward state failure, driven by a water crisis of its own making. The collapse of the nation’s hydrological systems is no longer a distant threat but an active, observable process. The physical basis of the state—its ability to provide water and power to its capital—is collapsing. The political legitimacy of the state has been shattered by the president’s own admission of this failure. The current regime, paralyzed by its political DNA and beholden to interests that profit from destruction, is structurally incapable of averting this outcome. Its proposed “solution”—a fantastical capital relocation—is a deflection that will only accelerate the crisis by diverting non-existent resources to the very entities who profited from the initial disaster.

Two futures lie before Iran. The first, and most probable under the current regime, is a future of isolationist collapse—of emptying reservoirs, rolling blackouts, agricultural ruin, and mass displacement, culminating in a humanitarian and security catastrophe that will destabilize the entire region. The second future is one of national revival through global partnership. It is a future that can only be realized after a fundamental political transition, led by a new government that chooses transparency and cooperation over ideology and isolation.

Primary Recommendation: An Imperative for Proactive Contingency Planning

Waiting for a political transition in Iran to begin planning a response is a recipe for failure. The window of opportunity for a successful, stable transition will be narrow and chaotic. The international community must act now to ensure that a credible, comprehensive, and fully-funded recovery plan is ready for immediate deployment on “Day One.” The timeline to a major destabilization event has shortened from years to months.

Therefore, the primary policy recommendation of this report is for the United States, the European Union, and the G7, in concert with the proposed partner nations, to immediately and proactively form a “Shadow” Iran Water Recovery Task Force. The model of proactive, multi-national contingency planning, similar to the G7’s establishment of a “Shadow Fleet Task Force” to counter illegal shipping, should be adapted to address the impending Iranian collapse.

The mandate of this Shadow Task Force must be immediately expanded to address the accelerated timeline. Its focus must shift from long-term recovery planning to near-term crisis management and contingency response. Its tasks would be to:

1. Accelerate Technical Planning for Emergency Response: The Consortium partners (Israel, Australia, Singapore, the Netherlands, GCC) must move beyond drafting long-term recovery blueprints. The immediate priority is to develop “Day One” operational kits for emergency water purification, mobile sanitation systems, and public health interventions designed for deployment in a collapsing urban environment like Tehran.
2. Establish a Humanitarian/Displacement Crisis Management Cell: The Task Force must be expanded to include senior representatives from the UNHCR, the World Food Programme (WFP), and other key humanitarian agencies. This cell’s mandate would be to model displacement scenarios based on the failure of Tehran and other major cities, identify logistical corridors, and begin the process of pre-positioning resources for a potential mass outflow of refugees into Turkey, Iraq, and the Caucasus.
3. Develop Contingency Plans for Capital Relocation Chaos: The Task Force must conduct a specific analysis of the security and logistical implications of a chaotic, state-directed (or collapsing) attempt to move key government functions and populations out of Tehran. This analysis shoul