hydropolitics of the tigris - euphrates river basin with - ceris.be

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Conclusions Historically there were few disputes about the management of the Tigris-Euphrates river basin until after WWII. This coincided with the autonomy of the 3 main countries in the river basin (Turkey, Syria and Iraq) and an extraordinary leap forward in development of agricultural expansion, irrigation projects, industrialization and use of hydro for electrical power. The majority of these initiatives required the construction of dams and canals for transporting water from rivers and ‘lakes’ to arid zones or, as is the case in southern Iraq, away from inundated or water-logged zones. Each country has a different focus on development strategy and therefore have different requirements from the domain of water resources. Turkey, who has opted for industrialization in South East Anatolia, primarily uses water to provide electrical power to support its drive to industrialize itself and to reduce costly dependency on importing energy in the form of petroleum. A good portion of the stored water from the GAP project will certainly be used to expand irrigation areas to immediately raise agricultural economic activity at the local level. In addition Turkey has installed water facilities along the Mediterranean coast (such as on the Manavgat River) to begin processing water for export. Preliminary activities have begun with North Cyprus and a deal has been recently signed with Israel. Turkey has announced its interest to increase this service to all countries in the region. The dams, especially the GAP project, reduce the flow downstream but Turkey argues that she has sovereign rights to the water that flows in her territory. Although Turkey does not suffer from downstream management of her waters, she has been affected by downstream complaints have strongly impacted on International funding for GAP. Syria, in pursuit of a strategy of independent food security linked to agriculture, has set about organizing her water resources accordingly with dams along the Euphrates and extensive abstraction along the Orontes River. Poor design and planning have resulted in inefficiency of the Syrian hydrological program, with the result that she is now a net importer of food and sometime receiver of food aid. There is a need to adjust economic plans and strategies and develop their industrial capacity to try to escape this dependency. Syria will have some difficulty, being a state with underdeveloped industrial capacity and limited energy reserves (petroleum and hydroelectricity). This change will require an adjustment in human resources (skills, training 34
and capacity building), an abandonment of internal food security strategy (and therefore dependence on outside sources), and a change of political will. Being a downstream riparian, Syria has come into dispute with Turkey over the GAP project, proclaiming their territorial and historical rights to the Euphrates over the sovereign rights of Turkey. Iraq is also heavily invested in dams and canals for irrigation and hydro-electricity, but is less dependent on agriculture than Syria due to their petroleum reserves. Normally Iraq has had cordial water and economic relations with Turkey but this changed with the Gulf War and sanctions, in which Turkey sided against Iraq. Due to isolation and harsh limits on oil exports, Iraq was faced with a new dependency on agriculture (and hence irrigation/water transfers) that had not existed for many years since the petroleum boom. With negligent maintenance of the system during the Saddam Hussein regime, the Iraqi’s were forced to scramble in pushing up agricultural supply, not only for maintaining food supply but to ensure internal economic activity (at least to a degree) and therefore stability and security. Desalinization canals and systems were put into action to try to reclaim unusable lands but were also put into use to drain southern marshes where insurgents were hiding. Contrary to the other two riparian neighbours Iraq has been restricted to limited water resource management on a local scale only and has had very little time or opportunity to consider the implications of what is going on upstream. This is still the case at the moment during the post-Saddam Hussein era of Coalition Authorities also being unable to think beyond the short term needs of domestic water supply and trying to repair water transport facilities. It will be some time before issues of water transport, canals, dams, flood management and drought storage, and finally upstream water quality and quantity are recognized as priorities for Iraq. Almost all management models agree that a river basin management model is the best solution for dealing with future needs and scenarios of use. Due to the differences between each riparian it is generally accepted that an outside entity or organization acting as a mediator is the best method to initiate this type of discussion. The European Union is the largest local institution in the region that not only has an organization with vast experience and skills but also has financial resources for development and a political interest to promote open and fruitful discussions on management of the river basin. This is a much more effective proposition than the United States, who is only viewed favourably by Turkey and not by Syria and Iraq who see the U.S. as biased. The accession candidacy of Turkey has perhaps slightly skewed her independent status. It could also provide an impetus to steer the negotiation agenda away from old historic and rights- 35
Page 1 and 2: Research Papers N° 1 Centre Europ
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents Introduction ....
Page 5 and 6: The Twin Rivers of the Tigris and E
Page 7 and 8: mean annual flow consists of only a
Page 9 and 10: and measured a width of 30 metres o
Page 11 and 12: Works, who had the responsibility t
Page 13 and 14: known political components is the P
Page 15 and 16: crystallised the disagreements betw
Page 17 and 18: of planning capacity as well as the
Page 19 and 20: portion had been taken up by petrol
Page 21 and 22: In 1980 a Joint Technical Committee
Page 23 and 24: Lebanon has complained about this b
Page 25 and 26: equal-sharing distribution. This ex
Page 27 and 28: The UN/ILC Law was presented for ra
Page 29 and 30: perhaps a River Ethic and a River A
Page 31 and 32: The EC is a major donor in grant fi
Page 33: this does not bode well for the imm
Page 37 and 38: Centre Européen de Recherche Inter
Page 39 and 40: & 1 McQuarrie, Patrick, Water Secur
Page 41 and 42: had played a strong role in the dev
Page 43 and 44: BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Mark, Water and

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