With its neighbours activating new dams, Iraq’s historic twin rivers could run dry — unless new infrastructure projects and tense talks with Turkey and Iran bear fruit.
Nowhere is the effect on the country more palpable than in Basra, Iraq’s only coastal province.....MUCH MORE
Here, the Tigris and Euphrates — on which millions of Iraqis rely to farm — meet at the Shatt al-Arab waterway before spilling into the Gulf.
But with flows already heavily weakened, seawater is pushing back into the freshwater rivers, strangling wildlife and human settlements that have survived on these banks for millennia.
“Salinity has gone up in recent years and it’s killing the farmlands,” said Abu Shaker, a 70-year-old who has spent decades growing Iraq’s famed date palms.
Now, with such little fresh water, Abu Shaker and fellow farmers have left their ancient palms withering on cracked and salty earth, moving north in search of potable water.
“Before, we could sell our dates in the Gulf and as far as the United States,” he said.
“Now, you can see with your own eyes. This whole river died.”
Iraq’s water woes aren’t new. But with increasing regional desertification and population growth, Turkey and Iran are keener than ever to keep precious water resources for themselves.
Their new dams on the Tigris and Euphrates, and the tributaries that feed them, have reduced water flows into Iraq by half, said Baghdad’s Water Minister Mehdi al-Hamdani.
But he remains hopeful, with plans in the works to improve access across the country and guarantee drinking water to all, even in a worst-case scenario.
– ‘Total interruption’ –
Hamdani, who headed Iraq’s dams directorate before becoming minister, said there were plans to build a large reservoir in Makhoul, north of Baghdad....
As part of Turkey's war on Syria they are close to committing a crime against humanity by cutting the flow of the Euphrates. Also close to committing an incipient engineering disaster with the Attaturk dam built on an earthquake fault. Besides the danger downstream, the enormous weight of the water itself introduces forces on the geology that are very difficult to understand. From a 2018 post:
Turkey is also denying water to northern Syria with dams on the Euphrates.
However, one of the dams, the Attaturk, is the world's third largest and is built directly over the Bozova Fault and is already triggering earthquakes so if it fails Syria may end up getting a lot of water.
This Temblor map shows a satellite image of the Ataturk Dam. Also shown
in this image is the Bozova Fault which runs right underneath the dam.
