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Transboundary pollution and a lack of river basin management by the government have led to the degradation of Iraq's major waterways. Under Saddam Hussein, the government constructed the Glory Canal which drained the extensive marshes in the lower reaches of the alluvial plain, changing water circulation and wildlife patterns over a wide area ...
The Tigris-Euphrates River System and its given watershed account for 98% of surface water in Iraq, integral to the diverse ecosystem. The total catchment area (the area in which rainfall flows into bodies of water) is estimated to have a size of 430,000 Square Kilometers (km²), about 46% of the whole country. [ 19 ]
In 2020, Iraqi authorities complained that the Ilısu Dam had decreased the Tigris river inflows and caused water shortages in Iraqi plains. [12] In addition, Kurdish farmers in northern Iraq warned of a "catastrophe", after Iran deliberately cut off the flow of water from Sirwan and Lower Zab to Dukan and Darbandikhan dams. [ 13 ]
In the Christian Bible, the Euphrates River is mentioned in Revelation 16:12, in the final book of the New Testament. Author, John of Patmos writes about the Euphrates river drying up as part of a series of events that foretell the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. [69] The river Phrath mentioned in Genesis 2:14 is also identified as the Euphrates ...
Politically contested watersheds include the Tigris–Euphrates river system which drains to the south-east through Iraq into the Persian Gulf, the Nile basin which drains northward through Egypt into the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and the Jordan River basin which flows into the Dead Sea (400 m below sea level), a land-locked and highly saline ...
Meanwhile, as the water level fell, salinity increased to 15,000 parts per million in some areas, up from 300 to 500 ppm in the 1980s. "When the river water levels were high, the low-saline Tigris washed over the marshes, cleansed them, and pushed the salty residue into the saltier Euphrates, which flows along the western edge.
In 2018, water levels in the Mekong River fell to their lowest in more than 100 years, even during the annual monsoon season. [51] The Jinghong Dam, as of January 2020 the nearest Chinese dam upstream of the Thai border, has caused huge fluctuations in river levels, affecting people's livelihoods downstream by disrupting the river's natural cycle.
In 1989 Iraq and Syria signed a water-sharing agreement under which a maximum of 42% (210 m³/s) of the surface water inflow through the Euphrates granted by Turkey unilaterally to the downstream riparians (500 m³/s) was considered as Syria's share. [3] There is no final agreement regarding the Syrian water rights on the Euphrates and Tigris ...