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Tigris and Euphrates River Project Goals and Timeline

This version was saved 11 years, 11 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by nixonbl@dukes.jmu.edu
on April 11, 2012 at 12:44:11 am
 

 

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Goals

 

The challenge within the Tigris Euphrates River Basin is the sustainable and equitable management of water resources among the three countries of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. Due to upstream infrastructure projects and water withdrawals in Turkey, causing downstream water shortages within Syria and Iraq, and the water that is available from the rivers is poorly managed. Water management has been a struggle to reach equitable resources to these countries and is exacerbated by the arid climate’s tendency for droughts, traditional irrigation practices, and civil unrest. The history of the river basins, political struggles, climate, water usage, and social factors that all must be considered and understood to tackle the water crisis that plagues this region, and possible solutions for this valued resource. Currently the total consumption within the river basin is 96 billion cubic meters, while the total supply is 73 billion cubic meters, leaving a deficit of 23 billion cubic meters as displayed in the water deficit graph under setting the scene.

 

 

Proposed Solutions to Achieve the Goals

 

 

1. Updating Irrigation Practices

 

      All three countries want to engage in agriculture, even though this is an arid region and this is not always a viable option. A short-term goal would be to upgrade irrigation practices with a small group of farmers, then increase if applicable. A large part of effective water management is not wasting water through outdated irrigation practices. One of the biggest sources of water loss within these countries is evaporation, and our goal is to try and change that. In Syria, thirty to forty percent of irrigation water is lost during transportation due to evaporation. Most of the traditional irrigation practices involve flood irrigation. This process floods the entire field with water, increasing the evaporation rate, and increasing the salinity left behind on the soil due to the increase in the water evaporation. A non-invasive recommendation for irrigation upgrades is that of furrow irrigation. This will allow rows to be channeled into the field with a plow or by hand, allowing the water to freely flow between the ridges, thus slowing the evaporation rate and lowing the salinity of the soil due to the increased water flow in the furrows versus the stagnant effect as is currently used. IF furrow irrigation uses 9% of the water versus flood irrigation, which let us say is 100% used, then 91% of water is saved per hectare. 23 divided by the .91 of the water saved= 25.3 billion cubic meters.

25.3 billion cubic meters divided by the deficit of 96 billion cubic meters = 26.4%. That means only twenty-six percent of the irrigated land would have to upgrade techniques to void the deficit. 

 

     A long term proposed solution to this problem has been to turn open air canals into pipelines. However, there is an issue of funding within Syria. An idea could be to reallocate resources, or to search for international programs that might assist them in achieving this goal.  We also propose to introduce drip irrigation wherever the technology is available within the three countries, as another problem is the amount of water wasted by using furrow and earth distribution channels. Drip irrigation provides only the amount of water needed for a plant to grow and not much more, whereas furrow and earth distribution wastes a large amount of water, which is why we want to eliminate their use as much as possible. The drip and sprinkler irrigation systems will take longer because they are expensive and require time to install properly and could be the next change in the agricultural society within the river basin. Both the short-term and long-term goals should involve educational programs and incentives suitable for the farmers to understand, and adapt to the new irrigation practices.

 

 

2. Treaties Between the Three Countries

 

     Both the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers begin in Turkey, which is where a majority of the water is introduced to the two systems. No matter the state each country is in there needs to be a tri-country treaty pertaining to the international waters at what would be an equitable and sustainable flow rate. Currently Turkey uses 54.62% of the water from the basin at this initial access point by using dams and hydroelectric plants. This contributes to water shortages within Syria and Iraq.  Our goal would be to negotiate with Turkey to establish equitable water allocation treaties that are acceptable to all  three countries. Both downstream countries believe they need more water. Measuring the water levels and water withdraws from year to year at different sites along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers will help them recognize the amount of available water in a given year, and allow them to decide what would be an attainable flow rate. With this knowledge the treaty that is established could also have to be a proportionate based one that allows for adjustment as needed, such as during droughts. An ideal international treaty dealing with water use for this situation would be one that used the gathered information to proportionately distribute water between the three countries. Treaties in the passed have dealt with only bi-country negotiations and have not proved to have any tangible results. This brings us to the next proposed solution, oil for water trade.

 

3. Oil for Water Trade    

 

     Oil for water trade could be possible after treaties are signed and Iraq's government had a greater control over the petroleum in their country. Iraq is in the process of re-building their oil industry, by subcontracting the drilling process to other oil companies from global locations. Once Iraq is able to drill and capture their oil a trade with Turkey could be established as to an equivalent river flow rate to a barrel of oil trade. However, at this point of our expertise we cannot evaluate this trade due to the fact we do not live within this region. Oil has always been a controversial topic and this solution is given as a recommendation but must be left for those living within the basin to discuss and decide if this is a attainable solution.

 

 

Time Line

 

     The time line for the furrow irrigation, can range between one growing season, up to three years, depending on the amount of farmers that will be willing to change their irrigation practices. As for the tri-country treaties, setting up a defined timeline is difficult in this particular situation.  The three nations involved must come to a consensus on how to regulate the water flow along the rivers so that each gets their equitable share. Regulations and water management practices could possibly be changed within months, to a few years, depending upon how willing each government is to cooperate and how capable they are to act. For example, right now Syria is in a position of political turmoil, due to the Arab Spring movement, making it hard for them to organize enough to act. Whereas Iraq is recently coming out of foreign occupation and is more focused on establishing a stable government and not as much on specific policies. While Turkey is the only truly stable government at the moment and they control the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, they are going to have to be the first ones to act. However Turkey has very little incentive to act, leading to a gridlock in estimating an accurate timeline.

 

Assumptions and Constraints

 

      There are obstacles to consider before reaching these desired goals and solving the water crisis problem in the Tigris Euphrates river basin. Constraints such as deeply rooted political issues between the riparian nations limit the level of compromise we can allow for a tripartisan international treaty. The focus for eventual solutions requires the attention of such concerns and tolerance for working around these circumstances. Some assumptions, however, will be ever-changing variables which are partly what makes this problem so definitive. The unpredictability of annual flow along both rivers, due to the high possibility of droughts and heat waves make it difficult to determine future trends and planning of inlet flow quantities. It can also be considered from historical records, that this unpredictability has posed poor habits of water management in this region. Unsteady annual flow rates make it more difficult to motivate farmers and agriculturalists for more efficient technologies and updated irrigation techniques. Not just limited to agricultural, this also does create a compelling argument for government officials to provide funding.

 

     What we must take from these factors is that we are working with an arid region which will always be affecting the water resources available to the basin. Water scarcity is not the problem of this region. It is the cause of the many effects that make the water management issue so difficult to solve. The riparian nations must first understand that availability of water will not fix itself unless all countries are working together and considering the basin as an entire system.

 

 


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