Iran’s leaders are warning they may have to start rationing water — and the government may even relocate the capital — as extreme drought coupled with crumbling infrastructure and inhospitable weather conditions have created a major water shortage throughout the Islamic Republic.

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is warning that Iran’s capital, Tehran, may be evacuated in a matter of weeks if conditions worsen, though details on how that would happen remain unclear.

Aquifers that feed more than half of the city’s water supply are at a fraction of what they should be, while dam levels have reached as low as 1 percent in 10-million-strong Tehran and 3 percent in Mashhad, a city of 4 million. The Karaj Dam, which feeds the Alborz and Tehran provinces, is reportedly at 14 percent of capacity, while other locations are reporting less than 10 percent of usual totals. 

Precipitation is down by 86 percent across the nation, according to the nation’s meteorological center, and by 96 percent in Tehran.

Forecasters note that with Tehran recording its hottest summer in 60 years, even if rainfall totals reach normal levels in the winter season, it won’t be nearly enough to recover the losses. Since the rainy season began in September, Iran has recorded only two millimeters of rainfall throughout the nation, and none in 21 provinces.

“If consumption is not reduced by 10 percent, disruption to Tehran’s sustainable water supply is certain,” a spokesman for Iran’s water industry, Issa Bozorgzadeh, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

An Iranian news outlet, Eghtasad Online, reported that the Havi Water New Technologies Organization will begin cloud-seeding projects, a method for getting precipitation out of clouds, in seven provinces where suitable cloud formation may occur. 

However, another route may be water diplomacy. An analyst for Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, Fashid Bagherian, says Iran could negotiate an oil-for-water trade with Turkey, which historically has used water policy as a tool of geopolitical pressure. Likewise, Tehran could demand enforcement of a 1972 water treaty with Afghanistan to force the Taliban government to send water downstream.

Still, Mr. Begherian acknowledged that with rainfall in several neighboring countries also reaching 50-year lows, diplomacy may only go so far.

“The dangers and consequences of regional actors’ competition for water resources cannot be ignored; hazards that, over the years, have led both to the drying up of wetlands and to the phenomenon of sand and dust storms in the country,” he said.

The director of the United Nations’s University for Water, Environment, and Health and a former deputy vice president, Kaveh Madani, says Iran’s water shortage was not created overnight, but water rationing is the only solution at this point. 

“The country as of now is in its sixth year of drought. This is very unusual for Iran,” Mr. Madani told France 24’s English language channel, saying the dire conditions are a result of mismanagement and lack of foresight. He added that the government is not entirely sure what to do, but it cannot blame this situation on its enemies. 

As Iran experiences record drought, the country faces several other environmental challenges. Isfahan is said to be sinking as groundwater extraction for agriculture endangers infrastructure, leading to evacuations of unstable buildings, schools, and roads. Sand and dust storms in the southern region have sent thousands to the hospital with respiratory, heart, and eye problems. Poor air quality in Tehran has led to warnings for expectant mothers and those with respiratory conditions to stay at home and work remotely.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has not addressed the drought publicly, but state media have faulted Iran and Israel’s bombing of oil depots and other strategic facilities in June for an increase in greenhouse gases contributing to the problems.

Another of Iran’s hardline mullahs, Mohsen Araki, said that the unprecedented drought and lack of groundwater is the result of “ignoring debauchery and sin in the streets.” 

Officials must prevent “public displays of debauchery,” he is quoted as saying in arguing that the country’s drought is not merely a natural crisis, but a consequence of anti-social and anti-religious behavior.