Iran's Urban Planning Council Says New Tehran and Alborz Development Must Match Available Water

Mohammad Habb-e Vatan, head of a water-governance monitoring group and a member of the technical committees of Iran's Supreme Council of Urban Planning and Architecture, said in an interview published by Mehr News on Thursday 5 November 2026 (14 Aban 1405) that a Tehran and Alborz decentralisation plan has been issued by the government after completing legal steps. Under the plan, the energy ministry and other agencies must determine how much water can actually be supplied for new projects so that construction and additional population and industrial capacity are limited accordingly; he said the policy does not mean a complete halt to building.

Habb-e Vatan named changes to urban green spaces and reduced agricultural water use among the plan's pillars. He estimated Tehran's green-space water use at about 250 million cubic metres and said a 15 percent reduction in agricultural water use in Tehran and Alborz is a target. These are a technical committee member's descriptions of the issued plan, not a new measurement of its implementation; the agriculture ministry still has to draw up the implementation programme.