Iraq's rivers dwindle: The al-Musharrah's story
Shafaq News / In Iraq’s deep south, the al-Musharrah River has vanished once again. For the fourth year in a row, this once-vital Tigris tributary has ceased to flow, exposing not just parched soil, but a growing national emergency.
The disappearance has left villages like Muwailiha and al-Awainya surrounded by dust instead of water, with canals overtaken by weeds and families depending on trucked-in supplies to get by. What was once a lifeline for farming, livestock, and marshland communities is now a fading memory, one that speaks to a deeper crisis spreading across Iraq’s rivers and wetlands.
A Yearly Tragedy
The disappearance of al-Musharrah is not an isolated event, nor a seasonal aberration. It reflects a deepening national water emergency and decades of mismanagement, worsened by collapsing regional cooperation.
Across Iraq, water levels in rivers, reservoirs, and marshes are plummeting. The Ministry of Water Resources has acknowledged that Iraq's total water availability has dropped by more than 50% since 2000, with projections indicating a further 20% decline by 2035 if upstream restrictions and climate change continue unchecked.
In Maysan, where the Tigris feeds the al-Kahla and al-Musharrah rivers, environmental activist Mustafa Hashim described the drying river as “a yearly tragedy” that has gone unaddressed despite repeated warnings. “Al-Musharrah has been drying up repeatedly for more than three and a half years. And it's not alone. Other rivers in the province are facing the same collapse,” he observed.
The consequences have become stark. Farmers have lost entire harvests, herders have sold off decimated buffalo stocks, and families now queue for expensive water delivered by tanker trucks. The once vibrant river banks, home to migrating birds and grazing herds, now lie parched and silent.
Upstream, the problem originates far beyond Maysan. The south-eastern tributaries that feed al-Musharrah and its parent river, al-Kahla, originate in Iran and Turkiye, two nations that have dramatically increased dam construction and river diversions over the past two decades. These unilateral actions have slashed the volume of water reaching Iraqi territory.
Today, only around 140 cubic meters per second flow from Iran and Turkiye into Iraq’s Wasit province, just north of Maysan. Yet this limited flow is expected to supply multiple provinces across the south. Basra alone, with its industrial and municipal needs, requires an estimated 70 cubic meters per second. After allocations to other provinces, Maysan receives only 21 cubic meters per second, of which al-Kahla receives 14 and al-Musharrah a mere 7 cubic meters per second. For context, agricultural sustainability in the region typically requires at least 25 to 30 cubic meters per second per district.
Ali Mohsen, head of the Marshlands People’s Organization in Maysan, warned that the current allocation “is nowhere near sufficient to support agriculture, livestock, or even basic sanitation. We’re talking about entire communities left without any reliable water source.”
Ihsan Mohammed Ali, a 32-year-old resident of a riverside village, described the situation in stark terms, “The drought is so severe now that we can’t even use the river for washing or the animals. We’re buying water just to survive.”
Another resident, Laith Abbas, explained that “more than 50 villages along the riverbanks are suffering from health crises. We’ve lost so many animals. This is becoming unliveable.”
MP Jassem al-Alawi, from the Parliamentary Agriculture and Water Committee, underlined the urgency, stating, “This is the final irrigation phase of the season. It’s the most critical. Without a sufficient water supply, we cannot plant. We cannot maintain herds. We cannot survive.”
Too little Too late?
In an attempt to salvage the situation, Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources and local authorities in Maysan have launched emergency dredging campaigns. Beginning in early April, amphibious excavators were deployed to remove sediment and the aggressive aquatic weed Shambalan (Ceratophyllum) that has overtaken the stagnant canals.
Kadhim al-Saadi, director of Maysan’s Water Resources Department, acknowledged, “Each year the river dries up because of the same combination, such as weak upstream flow and the uncontrolled spread of Shambalan that clogs the irrigation network.”
However, the efforts are widely seen as insufficient and reactive. Excavation machines arrived after the river had already dried. Meanwhile, no upstream agreement has been reached to release additional water, rendering local operations essentially cosmetic.
“We are continuing to pump what little water we have into the al-Musharrah and al-Kahla Rivers,” al-Saadi explained, “but it depends heavily on releases from the Kut Barrage. Without a change there, we are only delaying the inevitable.”
As officials rush to keep canals functional, many believe the crisis cannot be managed with local interventions alone. MP Thair al-Jubouri emphasized the need for broader coordination. “This isn’t just about al-Musharrah. This is a national disaster. The rivers and marshes across Iraq are drying up. If we don’t address the source, there won’t be anything left to dredge,” he added.
Over 60% of Iraq’s surface water comes from outside its borders. Despite this dependency, the country has no binding bilateral water-sharing treaties with either Turkiye or Iran. Attempts at negotiation have largely stalled, and Iraq has struggled to enforce international conventions.
“We cannot depend on stopgap measures,” al-Jubouri warned. “We need legally binding regional agreements, overseen by international bodies, to ensure fair and reliable water distribution.”
Although Iraq ratified the UN Watercourses Convention in 2001, it has yet to translate this into enforceable agreements with its neighbors. Meanwhile, Iran has diverted the Karun River and dozens of smaller tributaries, many of which feed directly into the al-Kahla and al-Musharrah systems, leaving the southern wetlands increasingly dry.
Mismanagement at Home
While regional restrictions have curtailed water flow into Iraq, the crisis has been deepened by long-standing failures in domestic management.
A major contributor is the persistent use of inefficient irrigation practices. Across much of Iraq’s farmland, open-channel flooding remains the default method, despite its high water loss through evaporation and seepage. The World Bank estimates that upgrading the country’s irrigation infrastructure could reduce agricultural water use by 30 to 40 percent, easing pressure on dwindling reserves.
Rampant water theft has only worsened the shortage. Unauthorized canals routinely siphon off water from main irrigation lines to private lands, leaving entire communities downstream without a supply.
Official and resident Ali Mohsen described years of frustration, complaining that illegal diversions have piled up with no action from authorities. “People watch their neighbors break the law without consequence,” he explained, “and eventually lose faith in the system.”
The unchecked spread of Shambalan has further clogged the system. These fast-growing plants choke irrigation channels, damage water pumps, and create ideal conditions for disease-carrying insects. Yet routine maintenance, already scarce, has been neglected for years. Budget allocations for basic vegetation management are often delayed or never arrive at all.
The scale of the impact is visible from space. Satellite imagery shows that between 2019 and 2024, more than 47 percent of Iraq’s southern marshes have dried up. The United Nations Environment Programme has warned that the collapse of these wetlands could displace tens of thousands of families and lead to the loss of entire ecosystems.
Environmental advocate Hashim al-Bahadli underscored the cultural toll. “We’re not just losing water,” he reflected. “We’re losing a way of life, a culture, an identity, something ancient and irreplaceable.”
As spring turns to summer, the outlook grows increasingly dire. In Maysan and across Iraq’s south, temperatures are expected to exceed 50°C, accelerating evaporation and pushing the landscape further into desertification. Unless upstream releases are dramatically increased, remaining water supplies may vanish within weeks.
For the residents of al-Musharrah, the clock is ticking. MP Hanan al-Jubouri described the unfolding emergency as “a disaster in slow motion.” Each year of delay, she warned, brings the country closer to irreversible damage. “Without swift and coordinated action—locally, nationally, and internationally—we risk losing more than a river. We are gambling with the future of entire regions.”
