Newsletter No. 57;
IRBMS; October, 2016
Rally in Khandwa Nov 2008
Global water crisis is seeping in slowly from
dams is still going on. Over 95% of Iraq’s
country to country. Asia, which has grown
water
phenomenally in terms of population and
Euphrates; anyone controlling these dams
economy during last five decades, is
would have a stranglehold over Iraq.
witnessing conflicts over water across the
In Central Asia most of the water comes
continent. In Arid Middle East, water is used
from the mountain ranges of Kyrgyz
as a war strategy. Islamic State’s (IS) want
Republic and Tajikistan flows downstream
to control water of Iraq and Syria. The major
to
dams on the Tigris and Euphrates are
Uzbekistan through the Amu Darya and Syr
targeted by IS in Northern Syria and it
Darya rivers met Aral sea, one of the largest
captured the Tabqa dam in 2014, a major
inland lakes in the World. Earlier, Soviet
source of electricity and water for the
engineers built dams and canals to harness
country. The fight between Iraqi army & IS
water. After breakup of Soviet Union, the
over capturing the Iraqi Mosul and Haditha
water sharing agreements among the Central
comes
Kazakhstan,
from
Tigris
Turkmenistan
and
and
1
Integrated River Basin Management Society