Water in Iraq

Iraq lies in the Mesopotamian plain of the Tigris and Euphrates, and most of its river water comes from Turkey, Iran and Syria.¹ Since the 1970s, upstream dams have reshaped that supply, and no agreement fixes how much water Turkey releases.^2 3 Irrigation uses most of the water that reaches Iraq, while salinity builds up along the rivers, peaking in Basra and the Shatt al-ArabShatt al-Arab The river formed where the Tigris and Euphrates meet at al-Qurnah in south-eastern Iraq. It flows about 193 km past Basra to the Gulf, and for roughly the last half of its course forms the border between Iraq and Iran. Source: Shatt Al-Arab, Encyclopædia Britannica.^1 2 4 On the coast, a large seawater desalination plant is under construction at Basra.⁵

Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers, grew up on their water. At Choga Mami, east of Baghdad, excavators found irrigation ditches dug in the Samarra periodSamarra period A prehistoric culture of the middle Tigris and Euphrates, known for its boldly painted Samarra pottery. Britannica dates the Hassuna–Samarra period to about 5350 to 5050 BC. Source: Hassuna, Encyclopædia Britannica.⁶ The first Sumerian cities, among them Uruk, Ur and Eridu, grew on the edges of the delta’s freshwater marshes.⁷ Around 1750 BCE, the laws of HammurabiHammurabi The sixth and best-known king of the first (Amorite) dynasty of Babylon, who reigned from about 1792 to 1750 BCE. He is known for his surviving set of laws. Source: Hammurabi, Encyclopædia Britannica held a man who neglected his dam liable for the harvest lost when it broke.^8 9 In the twentieth century, Iraq built large off-river reservoirs, among them Ramadi–Habbaniya in 1951 and Samarra–Tharthar in 1954.¹ The two rivers still provide 99% of Iraq’s fresh water.¹⁰

Today, less of that water reaches Iraq. In May 2025, the water ministry said the country was receiving less than 40% of its share,¹¹ and at the height of that year’s drought reservoir storage fell to roughly 8% of total capacity.¹² In September 2025, salinity in central Basra reached 29,000 parts per million, its highest level in 89 years, the ministry said.⁴ A wet winter followed, and by September 2026 the ministry reported national storage above 31 billion m³.¹³ Iraq and Turkey have meanwhile agreed that Turkish companies will build Iraqi water projects, paid for through Iraqi oil sales.¹⁴

One interactive map of Iraq's water, built from real geodata. Climate & drought maps the aridity gradient (WorldClim) with warming projections. The Water risk layer's WRI Aqueduct indicators, covering overall water risk, water stress and flood risk (plus groundwater decline where the trend is significant), shade every river sub-basin by its 0–5 risk score. Demand shows where the population, and the water demand, concentrate. Infrastructure brings the physical system together: rivers, dams (FAO AQUASTAT), treatment plants, desalination and the major conveyors. Shared waters outlines the transboundary river basins and aquifers that Iraq shares with other countries, each drawn in full across the border; hover an outline for the countries that share it. Hover any sub-basin or marker for detail; sources are cited under each view.

Iraq is shaped like a basin. The Mesopotamian plain of the Tigris and Euphrates is ringed by mountains of up to 3,550 m in the north and east.¹ Desert to the south and west covers more than 40% of the land.¹ About 11.5 million ha, 26% of the country, is cultivable.¹ Iraq holds 56.1% of the Tigris basin, which spans about 221,000 km².²⁰ Near Hit the Euphrates enters the alluvial lowlands, splits into channels and loses water to desert depressions.² The two rivers join in southern Iraq to form the Shatt al-Arab, which discharges into the Gulf.²⁰ The southern marshes form a triangle across Basra, Dhi Qar and Maysan. They expand with the late-winter and spring floods and shrink in the dry summer.²¹

Rainfall

Rain is scarce and seasonal. The average is 216 mm a year, from 1,200 mm in the north-east to less than 100 mm over 60% of the country in the south.¹ Most rain falls from December to February, or from November to April in the north and north-east.¹ World Weather Attribution described 2025 as the driest year on record since 1933, with water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates falling by up to 27%.²² The national climate report describes three zones. The Kurdistan mountains receive 400–1,000 mm, with summers that stay at or below 35 °C. A steppe belt receives 200–400 mm.²¹ The hot desert of the alluvial plain and western plateau covers 70% of the country, with 50–200 mm and temperatures of 45–50 °C.²¹

In the World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal’s ERA5 reanalysis, averaged over the whole of Iraq, about 218 mm of rain falls in a year (1991–2020). Station records and national averages use other sources and baselines, so their figures can differ (the text cites 216 mm a year, FAO’s average). About 50% of the rain falls in December, January and March, and 4 months average less than 5 mm. Average rainfall in 1993–2022 was within 3% of the 1951–1980 level, though single years swing widely.

Heat and drought

Summers are extreme. Shade temperatures pass 43 °C in July and August and fall to about 26 °C at night.¹ The national climate report says temperatures in Iraq have risen at twice the global average rate, with rainfall down by more than 30%.²¹ The reanalysis data below confirm fast warming, but find little long-term change in average rainfall. Drought is now linked to that warming. Climate change made the 2020–2023 drought in the Tigris–Euphrates basin 25 times more likely.²³ By 2025 the five-year drought across the basin had reached the “exceptional” category.²²

The same reanalysis gives a mean temperature of 23.0 °C for 1991–2020 and a warming of about 0.55 °C a decade over 1971–2022. Station records and national reports use other sources and periods, so their warming rates can differ.

Projections

Heat is the firmest signal. The national report projects about 2.5 °C of warming by 2100 in Anbar, Salah al-Din and Baghdad under a moderate scenario. Under high emissions, Duhok could warm by up to 6.5 °C.²¹ Rainfall in Duhok could fall by 150 mm by the end of the century under high emissions.²¹ Days with a heat index above 32 °C could rise by up to 80 a year.²¹ In the World Bank’s CMIP6 ensemble, Iraq would add about 49 days a year above 35 °C by 2080–2099 under high emissions. It had about 139 such days in 1995–2014.²⁴ Its hottest day of the year would be about 7.2 °C hotter.²⁴ The report also warns that rising seas threaten to displace more than five million people.²¹

Projected change for Iraq

The table gives the CMIP6 multi-model median from the same World Bank portal, as change against 1995–2014. Projections cited in the text may use other models, scenarios or baselines, so their figures can differ.

Iraq’s own renewable water is modest. FAO estimated internal renewable resources at 35.2 billion m³ a year.¹ Most of the rest arrives by river from Turkey, Iran and Syria. The Tigris carries a mean 26 billion m³ a year at Kut, and the Euphrates 27.1 billion m³ at Hit.^20 2 Flow records at Kut and at Jarablus, on the Euphrates upstream, both show significant downward trends.^20 2 River flows swing widely: the Euphrates at Hit peaked at 63 billion m³ in 1969 and fell to 9 billion m³ in 1990.² On the national communication’s measure, water availability fell to 1,250 m³ per person a year between 2008 and 2018.²¹ Reservoirs buffer the swings, up to a point; storage is set out under Infrastructure.

Groundwater

Groundwater is a smaller and stressed reserve. Renewable groundwater has declined sharply, especially in the last five years, according to the monitoring wells of the General Authority for Groundwater.²¹ Storage in the Al-Diwaniyah basin fell by 21% over 30 years, and some springs have dried up.²¹ Salt is the other constraint on every source, as the water quality section sets out.

Supply by source

The main rivers

The table ranks the rivers of Iraq by the largest natural flow they reach inside the country. Natural flow is the modelled long-term average before any withdrawals. For a heavily used river it measures what the river could carry, not what arrives today.

The dams on these rivers, from the FAO AQUASTAT inventory, are listed river by river under Infrastructure.

Much of the irrigation network dates from the 1970s and 1980s and runs at about 60% efficiency.²⁵

Half a century of irrigation

FAO put Iraq’s irrigation potential at 4.25 million ha in 1976, and later at more than 5.5 million ha. By 1990 some 3.5 million ha were equipped, almost all fed from the rivers. Much had been abandoned to waterlogging and salinity.¹ The state kept building. The first 87,500 ha of the Kirkuk Irrigation Project opened in December 1983, and the scheme eventually irrigated more than 300,000 ha.¹ The 170 km Shatt al-Gharraf canal alone irrigates about 700,000 ha from the Tigris.²⁰

Drainage came late. The Main Outfall Drain, known as the Third River, was completed in December 1992. It runs 565 km and drains more than 1.5 million ha. In 1995 about 17 million tonnes of salt reportedly reached the Gulf through it.^1 2 Iraq withdrew about 66 km³ of water in 2000, according to FAO. Agriculture took 79%, industry 14.5% and households 6.5%.¹

The marshes

The Mesopotamian Marshes once covered about 17,000 km², FAO records. By 2002 damming and drainage had destroyed more than 85% of them, much of it on Saddam Hussein’s orders in the 1990s.^1 20 26 Activists later sought to re-flood about 5,600 km². In July 2016 UNESCO inscribed the Ahwar of Southern Iraq as a World Heritage site.^27 7 Drought has undone much of the recovery: in August 2025 only about 800 km² remained under water.²⁷

Farming under drought rules

The state now rations farmland by the season. A normal-year plan allows 10 million dunams in winter and 5 million in summer, and drought years halve it.²⁸ In summer 2025 the allocation fell to 1.5 million dunams. Reserves had dropped to about 10 bcm, and Najaf banned rice.^28 29 30 The 2025–26 winter plan allowed 1 million dunams on river water and 3.5 million on groundwater, with modern irrigation required for wheat.³¹ FAO first put the 2025 wheat harvest at about 5.1 million tonnes, 13% above average,³⁰ then revised it to 4.4 million tonnes, about 4% below the average, and put the 2026 harvest at 5.6 million tonnes, about 34% above the five-year average, excluding the Kurdistan Region.³² After the wet spring of 2026, farmers planted 300,000–400,000 dunams of amber rice following a five-year suspension.³³ Conflict left its own bill. The World Bank put farm-sector losses from the conflict with terrorist organisations at US$2.1 billion, plus US$590.9 million in machinery.²¹

Use by sector

Withdrawals over time

FAO’s AQUASTAT estimates put Iraq’s freshwater withdrawals at 40.6 billion m³ in 1975 and 48.3 billion m³ in 2022, the latest official AQUASTAT value. Agriculture’s share of total freshwater withdrawal moved from 97% in 1979 to 77% in 2022, according to FAO AQUASTAT.¹⁶ The World Bank series charted below has not yet taken up these values: it carries AQUASTAT’s earlier estimate of 42.4 billion m³ and 73% for agriculture to 2022.

The agriculture ministry said, as AFP relayed in April 2025, that 3.1 million dunums (775,000 ha) were cultivated that winter with groundwater and modern irrigation, against 2 million dunums watered by the rivers.³⁵ A UN Iraq feature of 2022 put groundwater at about 14% of the country’s water.³⁶ The World Bank notes that the Tigris and Euphrates have been declining because of upstream use, with about 60% of renewable water originating outside Iraq.³⁷ FAO’s official values put the area equipped for irrigation at 1,857,844 ha in 2020 and 1,251,144 ha in 2022.³⁸ National withdrawals are under Water use and the rivers under Water resources.

Methods

Surface irrigation covered about 77% of the area in 2022 and sprinklers 23%; localised irrigation was practically absent, 100 ha.³⁸ A 2022 report on water governance says flood irrigation remains one of the most popular systems.⁴²

Policy

Farming is rationed by season, as described under Water use. GIEWS records the 2022 halving of the irrigated area as a policy decision, and says that in 2026 the government cut the area irrigated with surface water by 50% in some southern and southeastern areas.^43 32 The state also cut its seed subsidy from 70% of cost to 30%, FAO reports.⁴³ A programme leases desert land for one dollar a dunum, with subsidised irrigation systems and purchase of the harvest at a preferential rate.³⁵ In May 2025 the Higher Committee for Water decided to shift to closed irrigation systems and to use pipelines, according to Iraq Business News, which summarised a statement by the prime minister’s office.⁴⁴ In February 2026 FAO and the Ministry of Water Resources opened two model projects, converting an open system to a closed, pressurised one on 160 dunums in Muthanna and rehabilitating canals for about 2,500 dunums in Najaf.⁴⁵

Treated wastewater and drainage reuse

AQUASTAT has 5 million m³ of directly used treated municipal wastewater, an FAO estimate for 2012 that it repeats to 2023, against 815 million m³ treated in 2022.³⁸ The World Bank noted in 2022 that only 10 of Iraq’s 18 governorates have wastewater treatment facilities.³⁷ In July 2026 the German agency GIZ invited a consultancy on drainage-water reuse in the Hillah river system, to identify options and prepare a proposal for a demonstration plant.⁴⁶ Plants are covered under Infrastructure; irrigation and reuse projects across the region are on the Agriculture & Food hub.

Iraq’s storage is vast on paper. FAO put the gross capacity of the major Tigris basin dams at 102.2 billion m³. Of that, 72.8 billion m³ sits in the off-river Samarra–Tharthar scheme, built in 1954.¹ Other inventories, including the register below, list Tharthar at 85 billion m³.²⁰ The Euphrates basin dams add 37.5 billion m³, including the off-river Ramadi–Habbaniya reservoir of 1951.¹ The Tharthar scheme diverts Tigris floodwater to the lake through a 64 km canal, and on to the Euphrates through a 37 km canal.²⁰ Completed in 1977, it is regarded as the cornerstone of Iraq’s surface water system.²⁰ The Ministry of Water Resources operates 25 major dams, hydropower stations and barrages, plus 275 irrigation pumping stations.¹

Tracked projects

Open the project database for Iraq

Ageing dams, unfinished dams

Mosul, Iraq’s largest dam, sits on gypsum bedrock that dissolves in water. The dam needs regular cement injections to stop cracks from widening.⁴⁷ Its hydropower capacity is 320 MW, not the 1,050 MW originally planned.²⁰ Two large dams were left partly built. As of 2013, Badush on the Tigris was designed for 10 billion m³ and Bekhme on the Greater Zab for 17 billion m³.²⁰ The ministry’s plan now includes rehabilitating Mosul Dam to raise its storage level to 330 m, with Badush as the fallback.²¹ It also aims to enlarge the Tigris–Euphrates canal to 250 m³/s.²¹

The war against ISIS turned dams into objectives. In April 2014 the group captured the Nuaimiyah Dam near Fallujah, and the flooding that followed displaced more than 12,000 families.⁴⁸ It seized Mosul Dam on 7 August 2014, and Iraqi and Kurdish forces announced that they had retaken it on 18 August with US air support.⁴⁹ In April 2015 ISIS seized the Tharthar Dam, and US intelligence reports suggested that it had opened at least one gate.⁵⁰ Essential maintenance stopped while ISIS held Mosul Dam. In February 2016 Iraq awarded Italian firm Trevi a contract to repair and maintain it, although the deal had not yet been signed.⁵¹

Storage under strain

Between 2008 and 2018, lower inflows from climate change and upstream projects cut dam storage from 73% to 32%.²¹ In April 2019 the Tharthar barrage carried its highest flows since 1956, and Mosul held 9 billion m³.⁴⁷ By mid-October 2025 Lake Tharthar had dropped to 38.5 m above sea level, its lowest since the reservoir was built.⁵²

The wet 2025–26 season refilled much of the system. In September 2026 the ministry put national storage above 31 billion m³.¹³ Mosul held 7.3 billion m³, against 1.6 billion a year earlier. Haditha held 5 billion, against 1.8 billion.¹³ The minister said the spring rains of 2026 had saved the water situation.⁵³

Desalination and wastewater

Seawater is the new frontier. Installed desalination capacity was 384,513 m³ a day in 2002.¹ On 24 July 2025 the prime minister launched a Basra seawater plant with a daily capacity of 1 million m³.⁵ PowerChina is building it with an Iraqi partner. In July 2025 its contract was reported to be worth around US$4 billion;⁵ the EPC contract signed in January 2026 is worth 17.193 billion yuan, about US$2.4 billion.⁵⁴ Commercial operation is due in June 2028.⁵ Existing plants are exposed to low rivers. The national report lists desalination stations shut by low water levels.²¹ The ministry plans longer intake pipes and new reservoirs at intake sites.²¹

Wastewater treatment has grown but still misses most people. In 2019 Iraq generated about 1,112 million m³ of wastewater and treated about 670 million m³, or 60.3%, a different measure from the SDG 6.3.1 share of wastewater safely treated under Water quality.²¹ Its 64 treatment plants served 34.5% of the population.²¹ In FAO’s older account, treated effluent ran by gravity to rivers and drains, with no defined collection canals.¹ Baghdad’s Al-Rustumia plant was designed for 204 million m³ a year.¹

Networks and losses

Iraq’s statistics authority put average losses in the distribution networks at 24.5% in 2024. The figure covers the 15 federal governorates, not the Kurdistan Region. It counts leakage, illegal tapping and pipe breaks between treatment plant and consumer, as reported by the water directorates, and a further 431,600 m³ a day was supplied without a bill. Governorate rates ranged from 9% in Kirkuk to 37% in Salah al-Din, with Baghdad at 25%.¹⁷ City figures measured as non-revenue water run higher. In Baghdad, only 23% of service connections had working meters, and studies put unaccounted-for water at about 50%.⁵⁵ The Baghdad Water Authority’s own 2018 balance put non-revenue water at 53%. Physical leakage made up about 20% of supply; the other 33% was unauthorised use, meter error and unbilled consumption.⁵⁶ UNICEF reports that 90% of household meters installed in Baghdad do not work.⁵⁷ In Basra, leakage was estimated at half of all water supplied in 2007.⁵⁸ In the Kurdistan Region, consultants in 2018 put the leakage ratio at more than 50% in Erbil, about 30% in central Sulaimaniya and about 80% in central Duhok.⁵⁹

Monitoring and new works

The ministry’s plan calls for installing 103 of 182 planned hydrological stations to track water quantity and quality.²¹ It also aims to send at least 75 m³/s from the Tigris to Basra to improve the Shatt al-Arab.²¹ Under the framework with Turkey (see Shared waters), six water-harvesting dams are planned in Nineveh, Karbala, Anbar and Muthanna.¹³ Turkish firms take part in building the projects, some on a design-and-build basis.¹³

Dams and reservoirs

Salinity rises along the whole course of the rivers. The UN-ESCWA inventory records about 300 ppm on the Euphrates at the Syrian–Turkish border and 600–800 ppm at the Iraqi–Syrian border. Near the Tigris confluence it reaches 2,000–3,500 ppm.² At Nasiriyah mean salinity rose from 1,080 mg/L in 1979 to 5,000 mg/L in 2002.² The Tigris is fresher, at 197–256 ppm below Mosul Dam and 475–851 ppm at Baghdad between 1999 and 2011.²⁰ Iraq’s drinking-water limit, set in 2001, is 1,000 ppm.⁶²

Salt lies in the soil as well. FAO found 4% of irrigated land severely saline, 50% moderately saline and 20% slightly saline. Half the irrigated area of the centre and south is degraded by waterlogging and salinity.¹

Basra and the Shatt al-Arab

The south carries the heaviest load. On 1 August 2018, a health-sector worker showed Human Rights Watch a chart he said he had obtained from the Ministry of Water Resources. The chart showed pre-treatment TDS of 1,763 ppm at Qurna, 14,164 ppm in central Basra and 28,000 ppm at Sihan.⁶² By November 2018, health authorities had registered at least 118,000 cases, and experts agreed that contaminated water was the most likely cause of the illness. The Iraqi Ministry of Health denied the existence of a serious epidemic of cholera or other diseases due to water contamination in Basra.⁶² Dr Mohsen Disher, a professor in Agricultural Sciences at Basra University, estimated that about 87 per cent of Basra’s agricultural land had been wholly or partly lost because of seawater intrusion.⁶²

The crisis returned in 2025. In September salinity in central Basra reached 29,000 ppm, against 2,600 ppm a year earlier, and the water ministry called it the highest in 89 years.⁴ Rain and upstream releases brought it down to 7,500 ppm in the city centre by late March 2026. Basra then began soil tests for a barrier across the Shatt al-Arab.⁶³

Cholera

Cholera recurs where treatment fails. The WHO totalled the 2007 outbreak at 4,696 cases and 24 deaths.⁶⁴ In 2015 UNICEF counted at least 2,200 cases and six deaths, and vaccination reached 229,000 refugees and displaced people in camps.^65 66 An outbreak announced in June 2022 reached 11,097 suspected cases by February 2023, the IFRC reports.⁶⁷

The reported indicators

On the latest values each country reports for SDG indicator 6.3.1, Iraq’s 42% (2024) ranks 14th of the 17 countries covered here that report it; years differ by country. The regional comparison is in the wastewater and reuse dashboard.

Between 92% and 98% of Iraq’s river water historically came from beyond its borders, engineers told Human Rights Watch; by 2018 the share was about 82%.⁶² Every major change in that supply has been negotiated, imposed or fought over. Iraq joined the UN Water Convention on 24 March 2023, the first Middle Eastern state to do so.⁶⁸

The first frameworks

A 1946 treaty with Turkey required Turkey to install flow-measurement stations, share their data and notify Iraq of planned works. The joint committee it mandated was never created.² Iraqi and Turkish experts first met on guaranteed Euphrates flows in 1964.²

The dam era

Turkey’s Keban Dam in 1974 and Syria’s Tabqa Dam in 1975 changed the Euphrates regime. Filling Tabqa cut the flow downstream and set off a crisis between Syria and Iraq, resolved through Saudi and Soviet intervention.² A Joint Technical Committee formed in 1980 and Syria joined in 1983. After 16 meetings it deadlocked in 1992 over whether the two rivers form one system.²⁰

In 1987 Turkey undertook to release an annual average of at least 500 m³/s across the Syrian border.² Syria and Iraq then split that flow, 58% to Iraq and 42% to Syria. FAO and the UN-ESCWA inventory date their accord to 1990, while other sources give 1989.^2 69 On 13 January 1990 Turkey began a month-long diversion to fill the Atatürk Dam, cutting the flow downstream by about three-quarters.⁷⁰ A 2002 agreement let Syria pump 1,250 MCM a year from the Tigris.²⁰ In March 2009 Iraq recorded a record-low Euphrates discharge of 250 m³/s.²

On the Tigris the pressure point is Ilısu. Construction began in 2006 and resumed in 2010 after a suspension.²⁰ Turkey started filling the reservoir in June 2018 and halted within days after Iraqi complaints, as Iraq’s parliament met in emergency session.^71 72 Filling resumed in 2019, and the dam reached full generating capacity in December 2020.^62 73

Upstream in Iran

A 1975 agreement with Iran on frontier watercourses divides some shared streams, and Iraq has since expressed reservations about it.⁷⁴ In 2008 Lake Hamrin reportedly lost about 80% of its capacity after Iran dammed the Wand.⁷⁴ In June 2018 Iraq’s foreign ministry said Iran had cut or diverted 42 rivers and tributaries.⁷² In August 2020 the director of Darbandikhan Dam said Iranian works had cut the Sirwan’s flow by 75–80%.⁷⁵ Basra’s deputy governor told Human Rights Watch that 75% of the city’s water once came from the Karun, since reduced by Iranian dams and sugar plantations.⁶²

A new bargain with Ankara

On 22 April 2024 President Erdoğan visited Baghdad, and the two states signed a Water Cooperation Framework Agreement, though no binding water-sharing deal.^76 25 On 2 November 2025 they added a financing mechanism: Turkish companies build Iraqi water projects, paid for through Iraqi oil sales.⁷⁶ Its full terms have not been disclosed.⁶⁹ On 8 September 2026 Iraq’s cabinet capped crude deliveries under the arrangement at 33,000 barrels a day for the first phase.⁷⁷ Implementation began in August 2026.³³ Critics in Baghdad argue that the arrangement deepens dependence on Turkey.³ Crisis Group judges Ankara unlikely to accept fixed release quotas.²⁸

The legal positions remain far apart. Türkiye treats the Tigris and Euphrates as transboundary rivers under its territorial sovereignty, while Iraq and Syria want them classified as international rivers with fair-sharing rules.⁶⁹ On 25 June 2026 Iraq and Syria signed a joint protocol on shared water resources. On 24 June 2026 Syria said that Iraq and Syria were working to revive a trilateral technical committee with Türkiye.⁷⁸ After above-normal winter rainfall in 2025–26, Iraq reported improved water storage and river flows.⁶⁹ By late August 2026 the Euphrates entered Iraq at about 680 m³/s, against 151 m³/s a year earlier.⁷⁹

The record

Shared river basin

The agreements

Joint bodies

• Joint Technical Committee on Regional Waters (JTCW)Euphrates-Tigris · 1980 (Syria from 1983; dissolved after 1993) · Iraq, Syria, Turkey

Shared aquifers

• Neogene Aquifer System (North-West): Upper and Lower FarsSyria · data moderate
• Neogene Aquifer System (South-East): Dibdibba-Kuwait GroupKuwait, Saudi Arabia · data moderate
• Taurus-Zagros Mountain rangeIran, Turkey · data moderate
• Umm er Radhuma-Dammam Aquifer System (North): Widyan-SalmanKuwait, Saudi Arabia · data moderate
• Upper JeziraSyria, Turkey · data limited
• Wasia-Biyadh-Aruma Aquifer System (North): Sakaka-RutbaSaudi Arabia · data moderate

The Ministry of Water Resources is the country’s bulk water supplier and national water planner.¹ In FAO’s 2008 profile it had five commissions, eleven companies and 12,000 staff. Governance was then “in a state of flux”.¹ Muthanna al-Tamimi became minister in May 2026 and pledged closer ties with Turkey and Iran to secure releases.⁵³ Money is tight. The ministry received 0.4% of the budget in 2016, 1.08% in 2020 and 0.75% in 2024.⁸⁰ Carnegie found this was the smallest share among the ministries it reviewed.⁸⁰

Iraq is a federal state. The Kurdistan Region, made up of Erbil, Duhok, Sulaymaniyah and Halabja, has its own semi-independent government and legislature.²¹ Environmental protection sits with the Ministry of Environment under Law No. 37 of 2008.²¹ Law No. 27 of 2009, the current environmental law, followed laws of 1986 and 1997. It turned the former environment council into an advisory body.²¹

Plans and agreements

The government adopted the Strategic Study of Water and Land Resources in 2014.²¹ A National Adaptation Plan, funded by the Green Climate Fund, is under way with UNEP support.²¹ The largest recent change is financial. Since November 2025, Turkish-built water projects are paid for through Iraqi oil, as the shared waters section describes.⁷⁶

Iraq has bought time, not security. The rains of 2025–26 refilled much of the storage (see Infrastructure). The drought before them was among the most extreme on record in the Tigris–Euphrates basin.²² Warming makes a repeat more likely (see Geography & climate). The national report expects water availability to fall to about 1,000 m³ per person a year by 2035.²¹

The response rests on three bets. The first is upstream. Oil-financed projects with Turkey brought no new commitment on how much water Turkey releases.³ The second is the coast, where the Basra desalination plant is under construction (see Infrastructure). The third is efficiency at home, where the irrigation network’s efficiency and the water ministry’s budget share are set out above. If any of the three stalls, the salt line in the Shatt al-Arab and the empty summer fields will show it first.