Special Report #203 | Water Scarcity in Iraq Special Report #203 | May 2019 Water Scarcity in Iraq Pieter-Jan Dockx Researcher, Centre for Internal & Regional Security, IPCS 1 Special Report #203 | Water Scarcity in Iraq Contents Summary 1 Infographics 2 1. Introduction 7 2. Water-related issues at the local level 9 2.1 Trouble in the south 9 2.2 Central and northern Iraq: More issues in the future? 14 3. Sub-national water disputes 17 3.1 The Kurdish water question 17 3.2 Sectarian hydropolitics 20 4. Neighbourhood tensions 22 4.1 Upstream riparian states 22 4.2 Inter-state war? 23 4.3 Balancing and bargaining 25 5. Conclusion 27 2 Special Report #203 | Water Scarcity in Iraq Summary This paper investigates the impact of the decreasing availability of water on security and politics in Iraq. Contrary to the bulk of existing research, international dynamics only play a minor role in this study. Instead, the focal point of what follows lies in domestic hydropolitics. Water scarcity has already brought about several security and political challenges in the country – both as a primary factor, and in conjunction with other elements. On the domestic front, scarcity has for example led to disputes among tribes and provinces, large-scale protests, and militancy. In the future, water could induce tension along ethnosectarian lines and strain the relationship between the Kurdish region and the federal government in Baghdad. On the international front, water allocation will increasingly influence Iraq's external relations. However, a conventional inter-state 'water war' is unlikely to take place. 1 Infographic 1: Euphrates-Tigris River Special Report #203 | Water Scarcity in Iraq Basin GEORGIA UZBEKISTAN ARM. AZER. TURKEY ARMENIA AZERBAIJAN TURKEY TURKM. Figure 3: Baku K Yerevan u k SYRIA ma r Kizi lir LaEBANON IRAQ IRAN Euphrates-Tigris Palandoken ISRAEL A r Keban a JORDAN river basin k Boundary of former KUW. Baraji i s Nagorno-Karabakh Kayseri Ozluce ehr Keban Murat N Autonomous Oblast C Karakaya Lake EGYPT a SAUDI Baraji sp UAE Legen d Van ARAiBaIA Karakaya Kralkizi Batman n S b Tabriz ea a Z Diyarbakir r e SUDAN International boundary t OMAN a Ataturk e r Orumiyeh Lake Administrative boundary Mardin- G Oroomieh ERITREA YEMEN Adana Gaziantep Harran Ceylanpinar Capital, town Birecik (GAP) Rasht (GAP) T DJIBOUTI i g r is East Al-Jazeera IRAN River basin a Aleppo Mosul e (ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF) S N Arbil . Lake al Asad a Mosul Karaj n s h Tehran e r b a t Za E a er Lake r n s u l s o p e r r Al Tabka h K L Dokan e r h O Dibbis t a a Intermittent lake i Dasht-e Kavir te b d s u As Sulaymahiyah (salt desert) e r Kirkuk Wetland M SYRIAN ARAB a Derbendi Hims l Salt pan a Qom REPUBLIC Buhayrat al iy Khan Qadisiyah Tharthar D River, intermittent river LEBANON Lake Samarra- Canal Beirut Tharthar Kermanshah Haditha Dam (capacity > 1 km3) Damaskus Hamrin Baghdad K ar Ramadi- kh Zone of irrigation Habbaniya eh development Esfahan Razzaza T Lake igr Southeastern Anatolia is Karkheh Dez Project (GAP), ongoing Karbala JORDAN Dez Irrigation scheme Karun 3 Amman Karkheh- Karun 1 An Najaf Shavoor K Gotvand ar un Eup 0 40 80 160 240 km hra Ahvaz tes Albers Equal Area Projection, WGS 1984 IRAQ Hawr al S Al Basrah ha FAO - AQUASTAT, 2009 Hammar t t A l-A r a Disclaimer b P The designations employed and the e presentation of material in this publication r do not imply the expression of any opinion s Kuwait i whatsoever on the part of the Food and SAUDI ARABIA a Agriculture Organization of the United n Nations c oncerning the legal status of KUWAIT G 2 any country, territory, city or area or of its u authorities, or concerning the delimitation l of its frontiers or boundaries. f Infographic 2: IraqSpecial in Detail Report #203 | Water Scarcity in Iraq TURKEY DAHUK Dahuk East Al-Jazeera Mosul ARBIL b a Z r Tallafar te Arbil Mosul a e r G Dokan ab Z r As e NINEVAH ss Sulaymaniyah Le Kirkuk W AS ad i m Derbendi T TA'MEEM i SULAYMANIYAH h a E h Khan a d u r A p t - h h l r a A a r t SYRIAN ARAB es Buhayrat al SALAHELDIN Tikrit REPUBLIC Qadisiyah Tharthar Samarra- Lake Tharthar Haditha la a Samarra iy D ISLAMIC REPUBLIC Ba'qubah OF IRAN Ramadi- Habbaniya Baghdad Ar Ramadi DIALA N Ka Al Fallujah a rk h he r h ANBAR J BAGHDAD a T t O i Razzazza gr WASIT T R is i Lake b D A Al Hillah N Karbala Al Kut KERBALA BABIL Aw Diwaniyah Al Amarah An Najaf QADISIYAH MISSAN Hawr As Satrah n A l Hawiza u r a An K As Samawah Nasiriyah NAJAF S ha tt THIQAR A l -A Hawr al ra Hammar Al Basrah b Az Zubayr MUTHANNA BASRAH SAUDI ARABIA P e r G s KUWAIT ia u n lf Legend International Boundary River Administrative Boundary Intermittent River Capital, Regional Capital, Town Canal Lake R e Intermittent Lake d S Zone of Irrigation Development Wetland e a Irrigation Scheme Dam Arabian 0 25 50 100 150 km Sea Albers Equal Area Projection, WGS 1984 3 IRAQ FAO - AQUASTAT, 2008 Disclaimer The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Infographic 3: Precipitation levels in Iraq Special Report #203 | Water Scarcity in Iraq 4 Infographic 4: Iraq’s Provinces Special Report #203 | Water Scarcity in Iraq The exclusive copyrights of this infographic are held by Dr. Michael Izady. The infographic cannot be reused without the written permission of Dr.Izady. To request permission please visit: http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/ maps.shtml 5 Infographic 5: Iraq’s Religious Composition Special Report #203 | Water Scarcity in Iraq The exclusive copyrights of this infographic are held by Dr. Michael Izady. The infographic cannot be reused without the written permission of Dr.Izady. To request permission please visit: http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/ maps.shtml 6 Special Report #203 | Water Scarcity in Iraq 1 | Introduction Over the years, the availability and quality of potable water in Iraq has been decreasing and this trend is set to continue in the future. In 2018, the Iraqi federal government noted that the water flowing through the Euphrates and Tigris (see Infographic 2), the country’s two most important waterways, has plummeted by 30 per cent since the 1980s. They expect a further decrease in the discharge by up to 50 per cent by 2030. Moreover, the limited amount of water available has also deteriorated in quality due to, for example, increased salination.1 Three processes that seem unlikely to subside have led to this development. The first of these is climate change. Issues like diminishing rainfall have an undeniably adverse effect on the availability of water. The second important factor concerns dam building by upstream riparian states. Turkey, where both rivers originate, has been building dams, and Iran has also dammed various tributaries to the Tigris and the Shatt al-Arab. The third issue is state weakness. Systemic corruption has impeded general policymaking, including water resource management policy, further aggravating Iraq’s water issues.2 This study explores how the decrease in availability of water impacts politics and security in Iraq. Rather than another inquiry into solely inter-state dynamics, the emphasis of this analysis is on domestic concerns. The international aspect will be touched upon briefly at the end. This paper demonstrates how water scarcity, especially in combination with other factors - but also in itself - has already prompted violence and has affected political power dynamics. Given the seemingly perpetual nature of the processes mentioned above, the issues discussed are likely to persist and could possibly 1Matthew Schweitzer, “Drought in the land Between two rivers”, Epic, July 18, 2017, https://www.epic-usa.org/iraq- water/; Tobias von Lossow, “More than infrastructures: water challenges in Iraq”, Clingendael, July 10, 2018, https://www.clingendael.org/sites/default/files/2018-07/PB_PSI_water_challenges_Iraq.pdf 2Kawa Hassan, Camilla Born, & Pernilla Nordqvist, “Iraq: Climate-related security risk assessment”, Expert Working Group on Climate-related Security Risks, August, 2018, https://www.eastwest.ngo/sites/default/files/iraq-climate- related-security-risk-assessment.pdf; Nadheer al-Ansari, “Water Resources Policies in Iraq”, Al-Bayan Center, March 1, 2016, http://www.bayancenter.org/en/2016/03/641/; Suraj Sharma, “Turkey’s forgotten economic project”, Middle East Eye, October 22, 2015, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/analysis-turkeys-forgotten-economic-project 7 Special Report #203 | Water Scarcity in Iraq intensify. Further, by linking the current hydropolitical conditions with the broader political and security context of the country, future scenarios of water-related conflict are extrapolated. This has led to the following findings: • Current water-related disputes have predominantly been located in the country’s south, especially in Basra province; • Inter-provincial struggles over the resource have occurred, but have remained largely institutional; • Disagreement between tribes over water allocation has already turned violent; • Water scarcity has been one of the key grievances of anti-government protests in recent years; • The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) holds the potential to politicise water; but the central government has largely prevented this from happening; • The so-called Islamic State (IS) utilised water deprivation to recruit disenfranchised Sunni Arab farmers; • Iraq’s geography and its history of ethnosectarian conflict makes water a possible source for ethnosectarian tension; • Inter-state ‘water wars’ between Iraq and its neighbours are unlikely to materialise; • Hydropolitics is anticipated to become a more prominent feature in Iraq’s future external relations.