Water Sharing Tensions Between Iran and Afghanistan Still High as Droughts Ease

Jun 24, 2020 | Phoebe Sleet
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Both Iran and Afghanistan have suffered from prolonged droughts over the last several years. In Afghanistan, the worst drought in decades directly affected two-thirds of the country in 2018-19. Around ten million Afghans were severely impacted by the drought and at least 300,000 were displaced as a result. Afghanistan’s water scarcity situation is driven by a mixture of human and environmental factors. While climate change and other climate-related hazards have intensified water scarcity, human interventions have been a key driver. Unsustainable agricultural and livestock-rearing practices, budgetary deficits, years of conflict and a lack of drought management institutions have all played a role.

Increasingly frequent droughts are causing tension between Afghanistan and Iran over control of surface water resources. The Helmand River is a particular source of discontent between the two countries, with each claiming that the other takes more water than they have the right to under a 1973 water-sharing agreement. According to Iran, Afghanistan’s two hydroelectric dams have reduced water flows across the border, reduced its share of water from the river and damaged the environment. Afghanistan, meanwhile, contends that Iran is drawing more than the 26 cubic metres per second it is allocated under the agreement, by diverting water into man-made lakes.