A youth dives in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, formed at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, during a sandstorm in Iraq's southern city of Basra on May 16, 2022. (Credit: Hussein Faleh/AFP)
Fires in reed beds and palm groves along the Shatt al-Arab riverbanks have once again made upstream water management practices a headlining issue in the region. The 200-kilometer-long river carries water from the Tigris and the Euphrates from where they converge, passing through Iraq’s Basra Governorate and then constituting its border with Iran’s Khuzestan province, where it is joined by Iran’s Karun and Karkheh rivers — before spilling out into the Persian Gulf.Shatt al-Arab once received 80 percent of its water from the Tigris and Euphrates, but dams along this major river system have caused drought downstream, leaving withered reeds prone to wildfires and salty seawater advancing inland. On both sides of the border, people share a common pain: Shatt al-Arab, which was once the lifeline of Abadan, Khorramshahr, and Basra, is nearly...
Fires in reed beds and palm groves along the Shatt al-Arab riverbanks have once again made upstream water management practices a headlining issue in the region. The 200-kilometer-long river carries water from the Tigris and the Euphrates from where they converge, passing through Iraq’s Basra Governorate and then constituting its border with Iran’s Khuzestan province, where it is joined by Iran’s Karun and Karkheh rivers — before spilling out into the Persian Gulf.Shatt al-Arab once received 80 percent of its water from the Tigris and Euphrates, but dams along this major river system have caused drought downstream, leaving withered reeds prone to wildfires and salty seawater advancing inland. On both sides of the border, people share a common pain: Shatt al-Arab, which was once the lifeline of Abadan, Khorramshahr, and Basra, is...
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