Iraq is home to some of the most fertile agricultural land in history, residing within the area known as the Fertile Crescent. However, people can only thrive if there is good soil fertility and access to sufficient fresh water. Currently Iraq is lacking both. In ancient times, civilizations relied on the regular flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates to help irrigate their fields; they also relied on the rivers for transportation and soil fertility. This remained the case until the 1900s, when phenomena like population growth, urbanization, and the need for electricity resulted in the Tigris and Euphrates being unable to sustain all those relying on them.
Disappearing Water, Drought, and Suffering
Iraq is struggling to meet the basic needs of its citizenry and industries' water demands. According to a 2022 World Bank report titled “Climate Change Inaction Threatens Iraq’s Social Stability and Long-Term Economic Development Prospects,” the country is already struggling with a five billion cubic meter deficit of fresh water, which is projected to grow to 11 billion cubic meters by 2035. Iraq’s population growth has also driven demand for water, more than tripling to surpass 40 million people from 1970 to 2020. During a severe drought in 2022, access to fresh water decreased to unsustainable levels and many agricultural communities were forced into debt while trying to survive the drought. Drought has worsened displacement, with over 1.2 million people in 2025 living in informal settlements. However, due to various other stressors within Iraq, it is impossible to determine the exact number of people whose displacement can be solely attributed to drought.
Degradation of Iraq’s marshlands has contributed to water challenges. Marshes are crucial for the storage of fresh water, improving water quality, and flood mitigation. Iraq’s marshes were purposely deprived of water by Sadam Hussein in the 1990s, and ongoing drought and dams in Türkiye and Syria have prevented their recovery. This has put greater pressure on local communities, many of which rely on water buffalo, agriculture, and fishing to survive. Many of the marsh buffalo are dying, leaving those who depend on them for their livelihoods with no relief. One farmer lost 75 percent of his herd. He is not alone. Many in the marshes are continuing to lose their buffalo and other sources of income. Other parts of the country are also being affected; in Basra, farmers are moving away from growing dates due to lack of water. Some are switching to jujubes, others are leaving, and those who insist on trying to continue farming are facing increasing challenges. One of these challenges is salinification. It has contributed to the death of water buffalo, the loss of arable land—around 54 percent is threatened by salinification—and the loss of drinking water fit for human consumption.
Iraq is facing another pressing challenge: desertification. Desertification is when a once fertile area is degraded, often by drought or unsustainable human activity like agriculture, until it is rendered infertile. It is predicted that up to 40 percent of Iraq’s arable land could be lost over the next few years as a result of desertification. This will further degrade Iraq’s water security and agriculture. Some farmers are trying to adapt by switching to more drought and salt-tolerant crops. This may work for some, but is not a long-term solution. What will farmers do if there is no water? What will Iraq do? Attempts to alleviate or restore land lost to desertification will continue to get more expensive, especially as it intensifies. It is roughly 10 to 15 times more expensive to restore severely deteriorated river irrigated land than lightly deteriorated river irrigated land.
The decrease in overall water coming downstream, climate change, and drastic mismanagement of water infrastructure and resources are largely to blame for Iraq’s water security crisis. Some have predicted that the Tigris and Euphrates rivers will run completely dry in Iraq as soon as 2040. There is little that Iraq can do to prevent this. Its neighbors, which control Iraq’s water sources, have little reason to prioritize the needs of Iraqis over their own citizens. Iraq has also drastically mismanaged the little water that it has agency over. The country has struggled to maintain its outdated infrastructure, which has resulted in wasted water and failure to provide access to clean water. For example, around three of five children are without access to safely managed water services. Furthermore, less than 50 percent of schools have access to water, which is jeopardizing the health of future generations.
There is an understanding of how severe the water crisis is within the Iraqi government, and they have moved to act, at least on paper. However, bureaucracy and lack of political will have resulted in the slow response of Parliament. In 2014, a water security strategy was commissioned. It included a staggering proposal of 184 billion dollars of planned investments and reforms over the next 20 years. However, these planned investments largely never left the proposal stage. There has been little government accountability for the worsening crisis. This is, in part, due to a loss of bargaining power with neighbors—neighboring states can point to Iraqi mismanagement instead of their own water extraction as the source of Iraq's water crisis. The government has also failed to push the agricultural sector to implement more sustainable and water efficient practices. Around 80 percent of Iraq's water is used for agriculture. Outdated and inefficient agricultural practices, like flood irrigation, exacerbate water stress. Around 70 percent of farmers are still using the practice. Some also point to a water subsidy, which they say has contributed to overconsumption and waste. Iraqis consume around 50 percent more water than the international average.
Historical Precedence and Background
When looking back at the history of the land that now comprises present-day Iraq, the challenges of water stress are not new. The ancient civilization of Sumer, now modern-day southeast Iraq, was one of the most powerful of its time. Thousands of years later, Iraq faces a similar threat as ancient Sumer: lack of water. One of the pivotal reasons behind the ability to establish the earliest civilizations in the Fertile Crescent is due to the region's once abundant fresh water. The ability to channel and control annual flooding, as well as irrigate fertile agricultural land, helped Sumer attain agricultural surplus. The additional use of rivers as transportation allowed for the distribution of food, as well as trade.
Iraq is not Sumer. It is not a state in its prime, rather one facing severe challenges in recent decades. Iraq has been plagued by civil war, interstate conflicts, civil unrest, ethnic division and conflict, corruption, foreign meddling, starvation, disease, and ISIS. All of these challenges are a part of this equation, but too much to take on in a simple article. Water insecurity looms ever larger due to a combination of climate change, reduced water from upriver, poor management, salinification, and other factors. Sumer's fate is a warning for Iraq. In recent years, evidence largely points to a catastrophic period of drought as one of the main causes behind the collapse of Sumerian civilization. Iraq can hopefully look to the collapse of an ancient civilization to try and spur action to mitigate this threat. Sumer was intimately tied to the Tigris and Euphrates River; so too is Iraq. Without the rivers, will Iraq continue to exist as a state?
Türkiye’s Role and Geopolitical Challenges
Water is a resource that many predict will be the cause of interstate conflicts in the future; it is needed by every person and every state. Iraq has found itself in a precarious position, experiencing worsening droughts. The loss of their major sources of freshwater due to damming up river, mostly by Türkiye, depletion of aquifers, and salinification are not helping matters. As of 2023, Iraq is now in its fourth year of drought, which has resulted in crop loss.
Iraq has limited agency over most of its freshwater resources. Most of its water first passes through, or originates, in nearby countries. To the north, Türkiye has dammed the Tigris and Euphrates, which in turn contributes to water insecurity in Syria. Syria has also dammed the Tigris and Euphrates, finally, what is left reaches Iraq. Additional dam projects are ongoing in Türkiye. One of them, the Ilisu dam, is expected to reduce the Tigris in Iraq by an additional 56 percent, which will only exacerbate Iraq’s situation. Türkiye’s development has come at the continued cost of Iraq. Construction intended to channel and block the Tigris and Euphrates has contributed to disastrous consequences for Iraq, over and above those addressed in this paper (e.g. loss of crucial biodiversity, reduction of reservoir and hydroelectricity capacity, increase in over extraction from aquifers, decrease in soil moisture level, worsening health conditions, negative socioeconomic impacts, factionalism and tribalism, and ongoing national security concerns).
Türkiye has built a staggering number of dams in recent decades. In the past 25 years, many of its 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric plants that reside in the Euphrates Tigris Basin were completed as part of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP). One of the main reasons behind Türkiye’s massive dam and hydroelectric plant construction efforts was to develop and electrify more of Türkiye. Those projects have compounded Iraq and Syria’s difficulties with access to fresh water. As Türkiye, Syria, and Iraq have continued to develop and urbanize, so too has the demand for water and electricity.
While Syria plays a critical role in the quantity of water that is allowed to reach Iraq, it is not one of the primary actors focused on in this paper. That being said, Syria is both negatively impacted itself, and negatively impacts Iraq. It would be difficult for Syria to try and improve the situation for Iraq without further jeopardizing their own water security. There is reduced water reaching Syria because of the dams built in Southeast Türkiye. The water that is reaching Syria is often polluted. The water then flows through Syria being further polluted, dammed, and extracted before finally entering Iraq. There is little hope of relief, as water flow from the Tigris and Euphrates has decreased by around 80 percent in the Tigris and Euphraites over the last 50 years.
Climate change is only making the situation for Iraqis more difficult. The effects of climate change, especially in the Middle East and Northern Africa region (MENA), is creating a reality where electricity, not just water, is a necessity to survive increasing temperatures. Around 1,300 people died from heat in Saudi Arabia during Hajj in 2023. Many point to climate change, specifically issues regarding water security, as a destabilizing factor that the MENA region will increasingly face in the coming decades. Many of these challenges are expected to destabilize regimes and present real security concerns for the region and the world. One potential conflict over water could be between Ethiopia and Egypt over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project. Ethiopia has nearly finished constructing, and begun filling, a massive hydroelectric dam along the Blue Nile tributary. It now stands as Africa’s largest hydroelectric project. Ethiopia’s goal is to help electrify the country and nearly double its electricity production. This poses several problems: Egypt relies on the Nile for almost all of its freshwater and views this dam as a direct threat to and a complete disregard for their needs by the Ethiopians. Egypt sent a letter to the UN Security Council in 2024 stating that Ethiopia had broken international law by filling the reservoir. All negotiations to attempt to remedy the situation have failed. A conflict appears increasingly likely. Egypt would likely be pressured to act if there is a prolonged period of drought and has stated that it will do whatever is necessary to ensure its security.
Iraq must try and remedy its water security crisis. If it doesn’t, the suffering of the Iraqi people will only worsen, along with the potential for future armed conflicts, humanitarian crises, and instability. Egypt and Ethiopia’s conflict serves as a critical example of unresolved water disputes. Other states, not just in the MENA region, must look to Iraq as an example and prevent this level of water insecurity. Water insecurity and scarcity are global threats. They can push states to civil, or interstate, conflict. While some may think that conflicts over water in other parts of the world won’t affect them, one can think back to the Syrian refugee crisis as a clear example of how regional issues become global issues. If Iraq truly runs out of water the people of Iraq will need to go somewhere.
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