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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Water levels in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region have decreased significantly as Iran has cut down large portions of water flowing into the country from the east.
The Alwan dam in Diyala province’s Khanaqin holds 38 million cubic meters of water, but Iran has for the past ten days reduced the flow of water into the dam.
“Iran took over the water of Alwan. They use it for their own purposes and you can see that the amount of water is decreasing day by day,” Ahmad Wasin, director of the Alwan dam, told Rudaw’s Hunar Hamid on Saturday.
The decrease in the dam’s water levels has led authorities to reduce the usage of the dam’s water.
“We have started to use less water now. The purpose is to use it for Khanaqin’s agriculture later in the summer. Also, to use the water for the projects in Khanaqin and for the citizens,” Wasin added.
Iran’s building of several dams and restricting the flow of water into the west has also affected the Kurdistan Region, forcing officials in charge of water resources to reduce the daily use of water held in the reservoirs.
The Darbandikhan dam in Sulaimani province is the main source of water for agriculture and drinking in the area.
It is also an important source of electricity generation in the Kurdistan Region.
The dam has the capacity to hold up to three billion cubic meters of water. However, it now contains just under 1.3 billion cubic meters of water.
Saman Ismail, the manager of Darbandikhan dam, claims that “Darbandikhan's main source of water, Sirwan river, comes from Iran” and that water levels have decreased to a point that the flow of water from neighboring Iran has fallen to almost zero.
Authorities have on several occasions warned that dams that had been built by Iran and Turkey, contributed to a growing water crisis in the southern and central provinces of Iraq and the northern Kurdistan Region.
Around 600 dams have been built over the last 30 years by Iran, cutting or diverting river courses from its territory into Iraq.
Since Iran began building dams and watersheds, Iraq's ministry of water resources has been in talks with its neighbor to prevent them from cutting Iraq’s main sources of water, but the talks have not been fruitful.
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