Iraq: Levels of Tigris and Euphrates Plunge in South

People collect water for their animals from the al-Thirma river in Diwaniya, Iraq, October 11 2022. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
People collect water for their animals from the al-Thirma river in Diwaniya, Iraq, October 11 2022. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
TT

Iraq: Levels of Tigris and Euphrates Plunge in South

People collect water for their animals from the al-Thirma river in Diwaniya, Iraq, October 11 2022. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
People collect water for their animals from the al-Thirma river in Diwaniya, Iraq, October 11 2022. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates rivers have witnessed a sharp decrease in their levels in the south of the country, officials said Sunday, pledging to take urgent measures to ease water shortages.

In Nasiriyah, capital of the southern province of Dhi Qar, an AFP photographer saw the river bed of the mighty Euphrates dry in patches.

The water ministry blamed the situation in some southern provinces on "the low quantity of water reaching Iraq from neighboring Türkiye".

"This has triggered a sharp drop in the country's water reserves," it said in a statement.

The Tigris and the Euphrates both have their source in Türkiye, and authorities in Iraq have long accused the Ankara government of withholding water in dams that choke the rivers, dramatically reducing flows into Iraq.

Iraqi authorities also accuse farmers of abusing water supplies and flouting restrictions to irrigate their lands.

Water scarcity hitting farming and food security are already among the "main drivers of rural-to-urban migration" in Iraq, the UN and several non-government groups said in June 2022.

According to official Iraqi statistics from last year, the level of the Tigris entering Iraq has dropped to just 35 percent of its average over the past century.

Water ministry spokesman Khaled Chamal said Sunday that Iraq was getting only 30 percent of the water it expected from the Tigris and the Euphrates.

Iraq regularly asks Türkiye to release more water, and has imposed measures to ration water for agriculture and domestic use.

Water is also often held back in dams in Iraq's north, triggering anger among residents in the south.

Chamal told AFP the latest drop in water levels in both the Tigris and Euphrates in the country's south was "temporary".

Authorities will increase levels by releasing water from Iraqi dams in the northern areas of Mosul, Dukan and Darbandikhan, he added.

"There should be positive results within the next two days," he said.



Report: Amazon Fires Drive Unprecedented Global Forest Loss in 2024

A firefighter sets the forest ablaze as part of a controlled plan to prevent wildfires in the Cerrado region, at a national park in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
A firefighter sets the forest ablaze as part of a controlled plan to prevent wildfires in the Cerrado region, at a national park in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
TT

Report: Amazon Fires Drive Unprecedented Global Forest Loss in 2024

A firefighter sets the forest ablaze as part of a controlled plan to prevent wildfires in the Cerrado region, at a national park in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
A firefighter sets the forest ablaze as part of a controlled plan to prevent wildfires in the Cerrado region, at a national park in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Massive fires fueled by climate change led global forest loss to smash records in 2024, according to a report issued on Wednesday.

Loss of tropical pristine forests alone reached 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres), an 80% spike compared to 2023 and an area roughly the size of Panama, mainly because Brazil, the host of the next global climate summit in November, struggled to contain fires in the Amazon amid the worst drought ever recorded in the rainforest. A myriad of other countries, including Bolivia and Canada, were also ravaged by wildfires.

It was the first time the annual report, issued by the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland, showed fires as the leading cause of tropical forest loss, a grim milestone for a naturally humid ecosystem that is not supposed to burn, Reuters reported.

"The signals in these data are particularly frightening," said Matthew Hansen, the co-director of a lab at the University of Maryland that compiled and analyzed the data. "The fear is that the climate signal is going to overtake our ability to respond effectively."

Latin America was hit particularly hard, the report said, with the Amazon biome hitting its highest level of primary forest loss since 2016.

Brazil, which holds the largest share of the world's tropical forests, lost 2.8 million hectares (6.9 million acres), the most of any country. It was a reversal of the progress made in 2023 when President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office promising to protect the world's largest rainforest.

“This was unprecedented, which means we have to adapt all our policy to a new reality,” said Andre Lima, who oversees deforestation control policies for Brazil’s Ministry of Environment, adding that fire, which was never among the leading causes of forest loss, is now a top priority for the government.

Bolivia overtook the Democratic Republic of Congo as the second country with the most tropical forest loss despite having less than half the amount of forest as the African nation, which also saw a spike in forest loss last year.

Bolivia's forest loss surged by 200% in 2024, with a drought, wildfires and a government-incentivized agricultural expansion as the leading causes. Across Latin America, the report noted similar trends in Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.

Conflicts in Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo also boosted deforestation rates, as armed groups used up natural resources.

Outside the tropics, boreal forests, which evolved with seasonal fires, also posted record-high tree loss in 2024, with Canada and Russia each losing 5.2 million hectares (12.8 million acres) in 2024 as wildfires got out of control.

Southeast Asia bucked the global trend with Malaysia, Laos, and Indonesia all posting double-digit decreases in primary forest loss, as domestic conservation policy, combined with efforts by communities and the private sector, continued to effectively contain fires and agricultural expansion.

Another outlier was the Charagua Iyambae Indigenous territory in southern Bolivia, which was able to keep the country's record fires at bay through land-use policies and early warning systems.

Rod Taylor, the global director for forests at the WRI, said that as leaders descend on the Amazonian city of Belem for the next climate summit, he would like to see countries make progress in introducing better funding mechanisms for conservation.

"At the moment," he said, "there's more money to be paid by chopping forests down than keeping them standing."