Iraq and the water equation: after the dams

For decades we have treated water as a blessing we could take for granted: two great rivers running through the country from north to south, and a land that knew farming before most nations did. But this inherited sense of security no longer stands up to the figures. The levels of the Tigris and the Euphrates fall season after season, the winter agricultural plan is cut back year after year, and salinity is creeping up the Shatt al-Arab until it now threatens drinking water in Basra.

More than two-thirds of our water comes from beyond our borders, a geographical fact that no speech or statement can change. As long as upstream countries keep building dams and expanding their farming projects, Iraq’s share will remain hostage to decisions made there, unless we acquire real negotiating tools and manage wisely the water that actually reaches us.

From a technical file to a question of sovereignty

The problem is that we still handle this file with the mindset of a seasonal crisis: we raise our voices in summer when the streams run dry, then forget about it with the first rains. Yet water is no longer the business of the Ministry of Water Resources alone. It is an issue in which agriculture, energy, health and migration from the countryside to the cities are intertwined, and which ultimately touches the stability of society as a whole.

That means water must be on the table in every economic negotiation with neighbouring countries. Trade, investment and electricity interconnection are cards that can be played calmly, without escalation, to reach binding agreements on sharing the burden in drought years, instead of memoranda of understanding that remain hostage to good intentions.

Water we fail to manage at home is water we will fail to claim abroad.

Putting our own house in order

Fairness, however, demands that we admit a large part of the problem is home-grown. Agriculture consumes more than three-quarters of our water, and most of it still relies on flood irrigation, which wastes more than it waters, while huge quantities leak from crumbling earth canals and wastewater is dumped into the rivers without adequate treatment. Any serious reform therefore begins with steps that are in our own hands:

• Expanding drip and sprinkler irrigation through soft loans for farmers, with support tied to the water they actually save.
• Lining the main canals and maintaining the drainage networks that have been neglected for decades.
• Building plants to treat wastewater and reuse it in agriculture and industry.
• Drawing up the agricultural plan each year on the basis of actual water reserves, not the acreage of previous years.

These are not magic solutions, but they give the Iraqi negotiator a stronger case when demanding a fair share, and give farmers a reason to stay on their land instead of joining the belts of poverty around the cities.

The era after the dams is not a sentence of thirst, but a new phase that calls for a new way of thinking. Either we treat water as a sovereign resource to be planned for decades ahead, or we let drought draw the map of tomorrow’s Iraq on our behalf.