Iraq’s Water Security: Between Upstream Decisions, Climate Pressure, and Internal Governance Water security is a broader concept than the abundance of water in a given year. It is a country’s ability to meet its needs for drinking, agriculture, energy, and the environment in a stable and predictable way. By this measure, Iraq presents a clear paradox. It went through its worst water crisis in 2025, then enjoyed an unusual abundance in 2026, yet the underlying vulnerabilities have not changed. The vulnerability begins with geography. About seventy percent of Iraq’s water resources originate outside its borders: from the highlands of Turkey for the Euphrates and Tigris, and from Iran for important tributaries of the Tigris. The Tigris and Euphrates together provide most of the surface water consumed, roughly sixty percent from the Tigris and forty percent from the Euphrates. This means that dam operation decisions in upstream countries directly affect agriculture and drinking water in central and southern Iraq. The consequences of this dependence were clear in 2025. The Ministry of Water Resources described that year as the worst drought since 1933. The national reserve fell to only eight percent of storage capacity, and summer and winter farming was banned on an area of four million hectares. An Iraqi environmental watchdog stated that Turkey has built about twenty dams on the two rivers, and that in September 2025 Iraq received only about 35% of its entitlement: 200 cubic meters per second on the Tigris against 450 required, and 151 on the Euphrates against 350. These figures reflect the Iraqi position and are disputed by the parties. The upstream countries have their own account. Turkey considers Iraq’s water infrastructure outdated and wasteful, and Turkish circles state that Turkey contributes about sixty percent of the rivers’ combined flow while consuming only about twenty-nine percent. Iran, for its part, has built dams and diversion projects on tributaries of the Tigris, including the Sirwan (Diyala) and the Lesser Zab, and an Iranian official said its priority is to meet its own domestic needs first, then those of its neighbors. Complicating matters further, the absence of comprehensive water-sharing agreements with neighboring countries leaves Iraq exposed to unilateral decisions. In November 2025, Iraq and Turkey signed a mechanism to implement the water agreement, based on a joint fund to finance water projects from Iraqi oil revenues, with an initial share equivalent to 30,000 barrels per day. Iraqi officials see it as the first binding mechanism committing to maintain water flows according to Iraq’s actual needs. Critics, however, warn that tying oil revenues to an agreement that may benefit the Turkish side more is risky, and point to the dangers of corruption and mismanagement. Analysts also point to the risk of external dependence if the construction of basic infrastructure is entrusted to foreign companies for a long period, at a time when Iraqi institutions suffer from a shortage of funding and personnel. In January 2026, Parliament summoned the foreign minister and the water resources minister to explain the reasons for the irregularity of Turkish releases. Then the winter of 2026 brought a striking shift. With heavy rainfall and releases from neighboring countries, inflows tripled compared with 2025. The Mosul Dam’s storage rose to 7.25 billion cubic meters and the Haditha Dam’s to about 5.1 billion, and Euphrates inflows reached about 680 cubic meters per second, compared with 151 in the same period of the previous year. But the officials themselves cautioned that this improvement does not mean a return to normal, and that the inflows are not enough, for example, to refill Lake Habbaniyah. Experts argue that storing water alone does not solve the problem because of the shortage of dams and weak management. Some areas, such as Diyala, are still suffering: reports in August 2026 said that more than forty villages south of Baqubah face a severe shortage. The climate factor, meanwhile, operates steadily in the background. The World Bank estimated that a one-degree Celsius rise in temperature combined with a ten percent decline in rainfall by 2050 could reduce available freshwater by about twenty percent, and that nearly a third of irrigated land could be left without water. Its estimates also indicate that the gap between supply and demand will grow from about five billion to eleven billion cubic meters by 2035. Other climate indicators project a temperature rise of about two degrees and a rainfall decline of about nine percent by 2050. This is consistent with the results of local studies that point to longer and more severe drought in the Middle Euphrates. The problem is not limited to external factors. A large part of Iraq’s irrigation network dates back to the 1970s and 1980s and operates at an efficiency of about sixty percent because of flood irrigation and unlined canals. The World Bank estimates that modernizing agricultural infrastructure could cut agricultural water consumption by 30 to 40 percent. Added to this is the phenomenon of over-abstraction through unlicensed channels, which deprives areas at the tail end of the waterways. Although the National Water Council law completed its first reading in Parliament in April 2026, analysts believe the heart of the crisis lies in governance. Accordingly, water security is not achieved through a single solution but through an integrated system: binding and transparent agreements with neighboring countries, improved irrigation efficiency, storage capacity that preserves the surplus of wet years for dry years, the use of groundwater and treated water, and emergency plans based on early drought indicators. A wet year is an opportunity to carry out what difficult years made impossible, not a reason to postpone it. Thus, Iraq’s water security equation rests on three interacting elements: inflows determined by decisions made beyond its borders, a climate that is growing hotter and more erratic, and internal management that needs reform. Without addressing all three, a rainy year does not change the overall course. Presented by: Assistant Lecturer Zahraa Hussein Mohammed Sources: World Bank report on climate and development in Iraq (2022); Chatham House analysis of Iraq’s water crisis (2025); Arab Center Washington DC analysis of water governance in Iraq (2026); Iraqi and regional news agency reports (Shafaq News, Rudaw, Kurdistan24, Al Jazeera, and others) for 2025–2026.