Iran has a huge water crisis; Texas should apply lessons learned

It’s better to learn from others’ mistakes than to repeat them. Iran has a huge water crisis with no easy cure — a humanitarian catastrophe impacting millions, and a stark warning for Texas water management. 

Iran faces dire shortages, with Tehran’s reservoirs at critical lows, forcing rationing and tanker deliveries for 28 million people in water-stressed regions.  Five years of drought, along with a lack of water conservation, have resulted in drying rivers, lakes such as Urmia, and aquifers. 

Iran has many ill-conceived groundwater projects that have accelerated its groundwater disaster — far too many wells, exceeding aquifer recharge by 4.0–4.8 million acre-feet (AFY) per year. This over-pumping causes subsidence, sinking Tehran up to 0.82 feet annually, which then damages infrastructure.

Water projects driven by Iran's “Water Mafia” divert surface water, increasing reliance on groundwater, while poor conservation and minimal water recycling have displaced many farmers and sparked violent protests amid heatwaves and food insecurity. 

The state water planning process is underway, and Texas is making similar mistakes with its Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer, where exports far exceed aquifer recharge. These projects are driven by exporters and the Texas Water Development Board, despite concerns raised by locals. The Region L water planning group has received numerous written public comments from Gonzales residents worried about ongoing expectations by exporters to build more groundwater projects in Gonzales County, but Region L managers have provided only a weak response. 

The Gonzales County Underground Water Conservation District (GCUWCD), having granted massive export permits to Schertz-Seguin LGC, GBRA, SAWS, CRWA, and ARWA, has not required subsidence studies by any of these exporters — including GBRA's latest request for 9,000 AFY of Carrizo groundwater, which was thankfully denied by board vote on June 10, 2025. 

As of today, GCUWCD has performed no subsidence computer modeling and has no subsidence monitoring program in place, even around heavily pumped areas of major exporters like the northeast part of GCUWCD where three major exporters were allowed to group their well fields close together: GBRA (15,000 AFY), Alliance Regional Water Authority [11,620 AFY] and Aqua Water Supply [5,000 AFY]. This amounts to 31,620 AFY of permitted export volume in a concentrated area. 

GCUWCD has permitted 70,990 acre-feet per year for export (77% of total Carrizo groundwater permit volume, vs 23% for locals), far exceeding the aquifer’s recharge capacity and resulting in “water mining” that threatens long-term sustainability. 

Although groundwater exported from the GCUWCD area is sent to other cities and water distribution companies, a sampling of just a few of the larger cities using TWDB 2023 water loss data from exporters shows significant waste of water.

Combined losses (68,848 AFY) from these selected end users nearly match GCUWCD’s total export permit volumes. SAWS’s water losses (5.75 times its 11,368 AFY permit) especially demonstrate the need to check the exporter's use of water to ensure conservation is applied. GCUWCD’s board voted (4-1) on May13 to renew the SAWS 11,688 AFY export permit — a missed opportunity, thanks to the one board member that voted no.

Let’s not go the way of Iran. Texas must stop the mining of aquifers in rural areas just to waste groundwater in cities through expensive piping systems funded with state money. GCUWCD needs to implement end-user evaluations for exporters, apply subsidence modeling and monitoring and prioritize sustainability. Local citizens and leaders need to keep up the good fight and stay active — it’s making a difference. 

Ted Boriack is a member of the Water Protection Association and a Gonzales County landowner dedicated to preserving local water resources.