TITLE:
Expected Future of Water Resources within Tigris-Euphrates Rivers Basin, Iraq
AUTHORS:
I. E. Issa, N. A. Al-Ansari, Govand Sherwany, S. Knutsson
KEYWORDS:
Iraq, River Tigris, River Euphrates, Water Resources of Iraq
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Water Resource and Protection,
Vol.6 No.5,
April
21,
2014
ABSTRACT: Iraq is
one of the riparian countries within basins of Tigris-Euphrates Rivers in the
Middle East region. The region is currently facing water shortage problems due
to the increase of the demand and climate changes. In the present study,
average monthly water flow measurements for 15 stream flow gaging stations
within basins of these rivers in Iraq with population growth rate data in some
of its part were used to evaluate the reality of the current situation and
future challenges of water availability and demand in Iraq. The results showed
that Iraq receives annually 70.92 km3 of water 45.4 and 25.52 km3 from River Tigris and Euphrates respectively. An amount of 18.04 km3 of the Tigris water comes from Turkey while 27.36 km3 is supplied by
its tributaries inside Iraq. The whole amount of water in the Euphrates Rivers
comes outside the Iraqi borders. Annual decrease of the water inflow is 0.1335
km3·year-1 for Tigris and 0.245 km3·year-1 for Euphrates. This implies that the annual percentage reduction of inflow
rates for the two rivers is 0.294% and 0.960%, respectively. Iraq consumes
annually 88.89% (63.05 km3) of incoming water from the two rivers,
where about 60.43% and 39.57% are from Rivers Tigris and Euphrates
respectively. Water demand increases annually by 1.002 km3, of which
0.5271 km3 and 0.475 km3 are within Tigris and Euphrates
basins respectively. The average water demand in 2020 will increase to 42.844
km3·year-1 for Tigris basin and for Euphrates 29.225 km3·year-1 (total 72.069 km3·year-1), while water availability will
decrease to 63.46 km3·year-1. This means that the overall
water shortage will be restricted to 8.61 km3.