Restructuring of Water Usage in the Tigris-Euphrates Basin: The Impact of Modern Water Management Policies

This paper examines the ramifications of late twentieth century water management schemes–especially those initiated by the Republic of Turkey–for the riparians of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The Turks’ geographical position, and their ability to construct large water storage systems, has essentially given them command of the headwaters of the Euphrates and, to a lesser degree, the Tigris. The recent changes in water management of the Tigris-Euphrates basin have had, and will continue to have, profound consequences for the agricultural sectors of the economies of the riparian nations. By unilaterally decreasing the water available for irrigation in Syria and Iraq, Turkey has presented these nations with an aqueous conundrum that remains to be solved. INTRODUCTION The Tigris-Euphrates basin reveals evidence of water management projects dating back over six millennia. Throughout this period empires have waxed and waned. However, their power base has consistently been constructed on the wealth generated by irrigated agriculture (Beaumont, Blake, and Wagstaff 1988). The historical location of this activity has always been in the lower part of the basin in what is now the country of Iraq. The scales of development have varied from small diversion works to major engineering feats such as the Nahrawan canal built during the sixth century CE. Since the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, widespread land abandonment has occurred, associated with a breakdown of the strong central government necessary for sustained widespread irrigation. It was only in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century that major irrigation development began to appear once more in the lower part of the Tigris-Euphrates basin. During this whole period, water management had been confined to the manipulation of the snow-melt flood waves of the two rivers in the lower part of the basin in the period from April to June. In low flood conditions there would be insufficient water available to irrigate all the crops which were planted and crop failures would occur in those highest areas of the flood plain at some distance from the river. In contrast, high flood conditions could not be easily controlled by the prevailing irrigation systems and so crop failure through excess amounts of standing water occurred. Besides these vagaries of the annual flood there were also problems associated with the high salinity of the soils. Given these difficulties, the drainage of saline irrigation waters from the fields was always a prime The Tigris-Euphrates basin reveals evidence of water management projects dating back over six millennia. Throughout this period empires have waxed and waned. However, their power base has consistently been constructed on the wealth generated by irrigated agriculture.