Stimson Center:

By  Umud Shokri
Energy strategist, a senior visiting fellow at George Mason University

On December 6, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian unveiled the country’s latest attempt to mitigate chronic water shortages: an 800-kilometer pipeline carrying desalinated water from the Gulf of Oman to drought-stricken Isfahan.

The two-year, 350 trillion rial (about $300 million) project was largely financed by Mobarakeh Steel Company, Iran’s largest steel producer. Officials have billed it as a “strategic lifeline” for industry and a relief valve for the Zayandeh Rud, the river that once powered Isfahan’s economy but now runs dry for much of the year due to mismanagement and drought.

Iran faces an escalating domestic crisis driven by chronic water shortages and rolling blackouts, with Tehran teetering on the edge of “water bankruptcy” amid historically low reservoirs and emergency cloud-seeding operations. Satellite imagery shows Iran entering its worst water emergency in half a century, and environmental analysts warn that the pipeline is more stopgap than solution, skirting the structural failures driving the crisis. The project’s rapid rollout, the politics behind it, and its broader consequences reveal a model of water governance that Iran can no longer afford.

While the pipeline may ease short-term pressure on the Zayandeh Rud, experts warn it merely displaces the crisis. Desalination produces hypersaline brine, which, if discharged improperly, could raise salinity in parts of the Gulf of Oman by up to 1.5 times and increase water temperatures by 2°C, threatening marine ecosystems and already stressed fisheries. The pipeline itself crosses some of Iran’s driest terrain, where heat and exposure could evaporate 20–30% of the transported water, while brine residues risk contaminating fragile soils. Iran’s Department of Environment has repeatedly opposed such transfers, highlighting the Persian Gulf’s vulnerability due to shallow depths, high evaporation, and chronic oil pollution.

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