Water Resources: 3 factors in the upstream countries reduced the flows of the Tigris and Euphrates

Baghdad-INA 

The Ministry of Water Resources clarified, today, Tuesday, the latest details of its discussions with the Turkish and Iranian sides regarding water quotas, while touching on 3 factors in the upstream countries that it said affected the flows of the Tigris and Euphrates waters.

The ministry's spokesman, Ali Radi, told the Iraqi News Agency (INA), that "the water file is very important as a result of the conditions of great scarcity due to the policies of the upstream countries, in addition to being affected by the issue of climate changes," noting that "the file is directly related to water and food security." .

Radi added, "Negotiations over water with upstream and higher countries are not a result of today, but are long files for decades," noting that "the file takes two important axes, between them, with regard to Iraq's main revenues, which are concentrated in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, as well as revenues or rivers received from neighboring Iran.

He explained that "the Euphrates River represents 100% of its revenues from Turkey, passing through Syria and then to Iraq. As for the Tigris River, approximately 40-45% of its revenues come from the Turkish side, and the remaining percentage is revenues from inside Iraq, and the most important and influential percentage is from Iran." He pointed out that "this picture shows that the largest proportion of Iraq's water revenues from outside the borders are from upstream countries.".

He pointed out that "the upstream and higher countries have greatly expanded in the construction of reservoir dams as well as their irrigation projects, which has caused a decrease in Iraq's water revenues, as well as the large population growth taking place along the river basin, especially in the regions of the upstream countries, and these two factors affect water flows."
He pointed out that "the third factor that caused the lack of revenues is the natural factor represented by climatic changes and global warming, as well as the lack of rain and weak snow cover, which negatively affected the percentage of revenues," stressing that "Iraq is the most affected country as a downstream country."