…continued from part one.

Last month British researchers Furat Al-Faraj and Miklas Scholz of the University of Salford reported the demise of the Diyala River. Called the Sirwan in Iran, it is a major tributary of the Tigris, watering crops east of Baghdad. But in the past 15 years, the Iranians have reduced its flow by more than half. And worse is to come in 2018, when the Iranians plan to complete a new dam. The Karkeh River once helped fill the Mesopotamian marshes. But Iran now takes so much of its water for irrigation that the river rarely crosses the border.

This dam-building flies in the face of growing evidence that the entire region is becoming drier. Below average rainfall has persisted for almost a decade now. Less rainfall combined with water diversions have reduced the flow of both the Tigris and Euphrates by more than 40 percent in recent years, says Al-Ansari. Some analysts say that the intense drought of 2007-2009, and the resulting failed crops, helped trigger Syria?s civil war by creating social breakdown as farmers became refugees and food prices soared in cities.

Japanese and Israeli climatologists predicted in 2009 that the drought is likely to be permanent and the Fertile Crescent, which has sustained the region for thousands of years, ?will disappear this century.?

As the rivers empty, the temptation to fight over what remains can only grow. It is a true tragedy of the commons.

?2014 Yale Environment 360

Fred Pearce is a freelance author and journalist based in the UK. He serves as environmental consultant for New Scientist magazine and contributes regularly to Yale Environment 360. He is the author of numerous books, including the newly released The Land Grabbers: The New Fight over Who Owns the Earth.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/26/mideast-water-wars-iraq-battle-control-water