Thirst is no longer confined to southern Iraq and its salty Basra. Even the mountains of Kurdistan, once described as the country’s water reservoir, are beginning to wither. Rivers are cut off, wells run dry, and villages are silently abandoned. This is drought creeping in relentlessly.

Five years ago, the Qlyasan river, a tributary of the Little Zab, breathed its last summer sighs. Its waters receded gradually until it became indistinguishable from its summer banks. Like most Iraqi farmers, it awaited the heavy winter clouds to quench Sulaymaniyah, the city through which it flows. 

Over the past four decades, Iran built more than 20 water projects on rivers it shares with Iraq, such as the Little Zab and Sirwan. It completely dried up others, like Kangir and Kanjan Jam, all of which run through Sulaymaniyah province (about 370 km north of Baghdad). In 2011 alone, Iran cut off around 45 rivers and tributaries flowing into Iraq. Officials at the time spoke of Tehran’s intention to cut all waterways leading into Iraqi territory. 

Meanwhile, Turkey, from whose lands the bulk of Iraq’s water originates, has reduced flows to Iraq by 40 percent because of its GAP project aimed at irrigation and power generation. The scheme includes 22 dams, most notably the Ilisu dam on the Tigris, which causes a major reduction in water reaching Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, in addition to 19 power stations. 

Rain grows scarce 

The mountains of Kurdistan look less green this summer. A sharp drop in rainfall—the worst in two decades—has driven this. Last winter brought only 220 millimetres of rain, compared to 600 millimetres in previous years, a 63 percent decline from the seasonal average. Winter crops have failed, and summer cultivation has been cut back. 

While some believe large dams could secure water, storage in Kurdistan’s two main dams, Dukan and Darbandikhan, has fallen by 30 percent and 50 percent respectively. This has driven down the region’s per capita share of water to 600 cubic metres, compared to the global standard of 1,000. By 2035, this is expected to fall to half its current level. 

The crisis is worsening in residential neighbourhoods. Trucks selling groundwater roam the streets as household tanks often empty before piped water arrives. In many districts, the supply lasts only two hours every three days. Large housing complexes were never connected to the network at all, leaving residents entirely dependent on purchased water. 

The illusion of water security 

Kurdistan’s geography and terrain do not spare it the impact of climate change. Surface water is controlled by two neighbours with similar attitudes towards Iraq, while groundwater—on which most farmers rely—has dropped by over 80 percent in some areas. 

The region contains up to 50,000 wells used for irrigation and household needs, more than half of them illegal. Many have already dried up, especially in Duhok province (478 km north of Baghdad), where groundwater levels have fallen by 40 metres. These figures show the scale of pressure and depletion in parallel with population growth, as Kurdistan’s population now exceeds six million. 

Although the region lies at the upper course of rivers, about 60 percent of its water resources depend on Iran and Turkey. With no binding agreements forcing either neighbour to coordinate, Iraq has no sovereignty over its rivers and lifelines. Mountainous terrain, which should help store water, has become a burden in the absence of water-harvesting projects and small dams suited to the landscape. When rains fail, the region has no mechanisms to make up for the deficit. 

Being upstream and mountainous therefore does not guarantee water security. Like the rest of Iraq, Kurdistan shares the damage caused by cross-border policies and deals struck behind closed doors in Tehran, Ankara, and Baghdad. 

Who has the solution? 

Kurdish representatives are excluded from water agreements Baghdad signs with other states. The constitution, under Article 110 and others, gives treaty powers to the federal government, leaving Erbil out on grounds of national sovereignty. 

The latest deal between Baghdad and Ankara, in May, came amid acute thirst in southern Iraq. It promised a daily 500 cubic metres per second of Euphrates water but made no mention of the Tigris, which feeds Kurdistan. Dams on tributaries also went unaddressed, with no international mechanism obliging Turkey or Iran to coordinate with Erbil or Iraq as a whole. 

Although drought is driven largely by external policies, part of the battle requires local technical and engineering measures, still postponed. Kurdistan has the natural and human resources to ease the crisis if deployed properly, but climate change barely features in the region’s decision-making. 

Kurdistan’s technical universities include water resources departments producing research, but their findings have little impact on policy. Proposals for smart distribution networks, early drought warning systems, and water-use monitoring have not been adopted. 

Meanwhile, political rifts between the two ruling parties—the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party—and the failure to form a government eight months after elections leave essential projects, like rainwater harvesting and surface reservoirs in border villages, unrealised. 

Villages withering in silence behind the mountains 

The Iraqi constitution grants broad powers to Kurdistan, but water remains a federal matter, creating ambiguity over who bears responsibility for the region’s water security. 

The absence of irrigation and drainage projects, which require funding, fuels internal and external migration from several villages. Some in Soran and others in Qala Diza are left almost deserted, teetering on the edge of thirst. 

Farming no longer pays off amid water scarcity, poor infrastructure, weak demand, and unregulated crop imports, despite the presence of a regional Ministry of Agriculture. Coordination with Baghdad is weak and politicised. 

Remote villages are never connected to modern water networks or dams. For decades they relied on mountain springs and border streams. In the past two years, even these have dried up. Some residents resort to buying water from nearby towns; others migrate. 

Such villages rarely appear in crisis reports given their distance from decision-making centres. Yet they are the frontline in the spread of drought across both the region and Iraq. Their reliance on streams and rainfall, without links to the main water system, leaves them defenceless. 

Drought is not their only threat. Unchecked urban sprawl is blurring the rural–urban boundary, eating away farmland. Without strict land-protection policies, Kurdistan has lost over 50 percent of its countryside in three decades, while cities have doubled. 

These stories are absent from official data and negotiations. Soon, rural memory itself in places like Hawraman in Sulaymaniyah or Koysinjaq in Erbil will vanish. Drought has turned into silent displacement towards city margins, and thirst will not stop here. 

Catastrophe at the door 

Iraq ranks among the five countries most exposed to water stress by 2040. Kurdistan faces this too. Drought has already forced over 40 percent of families in the region to cut food spending, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council. The group warns that without a unified national water strategy, Iraq will not secure a fair share of water. 

These international warnings are no longer distant projections but match current indicators in Kurdistan. The regional government has launched initiatives to adapt: last year it built six small dams and began work on the Komaspan dam in Erbil, meant to irrigate 16,000 square metres of farmland and store 115 million cubic metres of water. 

But the impact remains negligible. Other projects stay on paper, such as the Bawanur dam in Sulaymaniyah and the Deralok dam in Duhok. 

Thirst grips Kurdistan’s rivers and springs, but drought is not just a regional problem. Iraq’s water minister describes it as the country’s ‘worst crisis’. In central and southern Iraq, the picture is equally grim. In 2018, only 20 percent of farmers accessed water compared to 65 percent in 2014, with numbers falling since. 

Basra (530 km south of Baghdad) continues to suffer from water salinity. Farmers across provinces like Wasit and Babil protest against near-permanent water shortages without resolution. The message is clear: Iraq’s water crisis and its rivers’ thirst are national issues demanding an emergency plan to save both its provinces and Kurdistan from catastrophe. 

This article is published in partnership with the Iraqi Network for Investigative Journalism “NIRIJ”.