The most significant sector contributing to water consumption in Iran, accounting for roughly 90% of total use, is agriculture. This reliance on outdated and often highly inefficient irrigation methods, such as flood irrigation, is fundamentally unsustainable in a prolonged drought. Farmers, desperate to sustain their crops and livelihoods, have increasingly turned to unregulated drilling of deep wells, which critically depletes non-renewable aquifers—the nation's long-term water bank. The resulting strain forces a painful choice: reduce agricultural production, impacting food security and rural employment, or continue depleting the finite water reserves, mortgaging the country's environmental future for short-term gains.
