Iraqi Kurd farmers battle drought as Lake Dukan retreats - in pictures

Economic lifeline slips away as waters recede and dams upstream in Iran stem the flow

Lake Dukan in Iraq is fed by a Tigris tributary, the Lower Zab river, which has its source in Iran. All photos: AFP

For several years both the lake and the river have been shrinking, severely affecting the lives of farmers in the region.

Bapir Kalkani, 56, farms near the picturesque lake but has seen marked changes over the past three years as Iraq suffers prolonged drought. "There was water where I'm standing now" in 2019, he says. "It used to go three kilometres further, but the level has retreated."

The large artificial lake was created in the 1950s following construction of the Dukan dam, to supply irrigation and drinking water for the region, as well as to generate electricity.

Farmers in the area used to dig shallow wells fed by the Dukan so they could irrigate their crops. Not any more. "The wells have lost 70 per cent of their water," Mr Kalkani says.

Drought is not the only source of the farmers' water problems. Iran has built several dams on the Lower Zab, notably the Kolsa barrage.

"The Kolsa dam has caused at least an 80 per cent drop in the water levels" of the Lower Zab, says Banafsheh Keynoush of the Washington-based Middle East Institute. She says Iran is going through one of the worst droughts in its history and has had to revise its irrigation policy. "Iran is on a dam-building spree, and many of its dams are small," she says.

The Dukan dam in Iraq has also been badly affected by the reduced river flow, says its director Kochar Jamal Tawfeeq. "Now we have only 41 per cent, below half of the capacity" of the dam, he says.

It supplies drinking water for 'about three million people in Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk', two major cities downstream, he says. But at only 300 mm of rainfall last year - half the previous annual average - the skies have not been generous. And Mr Tawfeeq says 2022 is on track to mirror last year's figures.

"We are releasing 90 cubic metres per second," the director says. "When the reservoir is full, we release 200 to 250."

Tawfeeq says farmers are being told "not to grow crops that need too much water".

He says Baghdad sent teams to Iran to discuss the reduced flow of the Lower Zab river, but "there's no co-operation from the Iranians". Iran contends its river flow contribution into the Tigris and Euphrates basin is only about 6 per cent, according to Ms Keynoush.

"What Iran is trying to say is: 'The Euphrates and Tigris problems you have are really between you and Turkey'," where the two main rivers have their sources, she says. But Iraq itself is not above criticism, says Azzam Alwash, founder of the Nature Iraq non-government organisation and presidential adviser.

The Iraqi Kurdistan government in the north plans to construct new dams but the projects lack any co-ordination with Baghdad, Mr Alwash says. Downstream, in central and south Iraq, the situation is being exasperated by a lack of modernisation of water resources and could result in disaster, he warns.

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