There is a very romantic yet tragic notion associated with the fertile crescent in that the awakening of the crescent’s early civilizations indicates the beginnings of environmental mastery in the process of domestication and settlement. This can be for better or worse, but it is up to the individual to wrestle with the question of whether the actions guided by humankind have inflicted more harm than they have good. In any case, the ancient titles given to crescent’s lands are indicative of the way of life for the many proceeding generations; Mesopotamia or Bilād ar-Rāfidayn emphasizes that these lands lie between two rivers; the land was not named after the earth, nor the animals, nor crops, nor people nor any languages, which is strange because it implies that the ancient Mesopotamians, a people who did not supposedly possess the technology, reach and extent of knowledge that a contemporary person possesses, seemed to have grasped what should be held most valuable.

Where’s the tail and where’s the head?

The Tigris and Euphrates rivers both lie on one large watershed/river basin and are composed of many tributaries (and therefore of sub-river basins) across four modern countries: Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Of the two river bodies, the Tigris is the northernmost and it cuts through the capital city of Baghdad. Both rivers converge at a confluence, demarcated by the city of Qurnah, in the southernmost governate of Iraq known as Basra (Figure 1). The confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers forms the Shatt Al-Arab River which discharges all upstream water across the four countries into the Gulf Sea (Note: although it is historically named the Persian Gulf, today published maps will vary with the naming convention as Arabs refer to it as the Arabian Gulf whilst Persians refer to it as the Persian Gulf).

Turkey and Iran can be considered the “headwater hegemons” (Tobias von Lossow, Pg. 3) as the sources of both rivers originate within their political boundaries, whereas only a portion of the Euphrates River transitions through Syria and a large share of both river bodies (in their latter halves) are contained in Iraq. There are approximately eleven tributaries that connect to the main river basin; They differ in length, output and connect to either the Tigris or Euphrates at varying geo-spatial points. In Turkey, the Karasu and Murat rivers converge to form the Tigris River; In Western Iran the Karun River joins with the southernmost part of the basin on the Shatt Al-Arab, just before the river water is discharged into the Gulf Sea; the Feesh Khabour and Sajur Rivers are very short tributaries that are similar in length, but can discharge an annual difference of 1.862 billion cubic meters (BCM) of water (Figure 2).

It is maddening to think that, because these rivers have run rampant for millennia, one water molecule, that had possibly passed through the ancient Sumerian, Assyrian or Babylonian civilizations, might today be a miniscule component of the polar ice caps, or it might be buried deep in the Mariana trench or located within the cell of a living organism or it might just have recirculated to find its way back to its dear mother rivers.

Urban Form

Cities in some ways are like people; cities are characters… personalities, they are all the same on an abstract level yet differ with specificity. Cities are interdependent in a broad constellation of linkages yet they seek independence. There is definite inequality amongst cities and they are not always willing to co-operate, not realizing that the downfall of one can have trickling consequential effects on others. Therefore, it is important to understand our case study’s form in order to partly understand its behavior; the urban site in question is Basra city, the administrative center of the Basra governate, which lies on the Shatt Al-Arab River. When the river networks converge and culminate, all the upstream water passes by the city of Basra, which is the last large city on the broader Tigris-Euphrates River basin before the surface water is discharged into the Gulf Sea. So, what type of city is Basra if it is not in direct contact with the Gulf’s salt water?

There can be four broad categories of cities (though broader matrices of categorizations and sub-categorizations can be conceived): the port city (historically known as an entrepôt), the coastal city, the riparian city and the inland city. Cities are most likely hybridized cases, for examples; riparian cities can be coastal or inland; ports can be located within inland riparian cities or they can be coastal; inland cities can be void of surface water; coastal cities can be void of river water. (Figure 3).

The city of Basra, like all cities, had various functions over the course of its historical development, but it mostly functioned as a node for trade and transport. Early in Basra’s history when no city existed, the Shatt Al-Arab was almost purely marshland with quasi-settled tribes trading amongst themselves. In his 1948 publishing Mabāḥith ‘Irāqīyah (Iraqi investigations), Ya’qub Sarkis, an Iraqi historian from Baghdad, argues that “the very name of the city is derived from the ancient Aramaic Basriyatha or Basriyi, meaning ‘the place of huts’ or a ‘settlement’” (Abdullah A. J. Thabit, Pg. 9). In the 7^th century, a military encampment was established a few miles off of the Shatt Al-Arab which became known as the first Islamic settlement outside of the boundaries of the Arabian Peninsula. The name Basra could also be rooted in an Arabic word which means a place to “watch”; this could be related to the function of the military encampment as an over-watcher or protector. Although Basra’s exact position is not known from the stages of its conception, the distance of the military outpost from the river could explain the current distance of the Basra Al-Qadimah neighborhood (the old Basra neighborhood) from Shatt Al-Arab (Figure 4).

Pre-military encampment, the informal settlements were made from marsh reeds and the tribesman had practiced digging ditches to tap the river water for irrigation. Over time, the reed huts were replaced by mud brick buildings as a sign of the transition to permanence, urbanization and away from nomadic culture (Figure 5). With more human settlement, Basra established itself as an entrepôt proper; during the Islamic Golden Age in the 8^th and 9^th centuries, Basra would become the “chief port supplying Baghdad, the new Abbasid capital” (Abdullah A. J. Thabit, Pg. 9). Additionally, during the Middle Ages, the Basra-Aleppo carvan route would be established, where goods arriving to the city would also transition from sea fare to land trade. The physical limitation in the Iraqi rivers was in the shallowness of the rivers’ cross-sectional depth (depth at the thalweg); any trade that was to be done inland via surface water had to be on a smaller boat with a shallow draft thus limiting the size of the merchandise.  

By the Middle Ages, the archaic watering ditches eventually became canals, rendering Basra a canal city. These waterways seemed to have multiple functions and it is difficult to trace which function was the dominant predecessor in the urban context: one function was to irrigate urban residential gardens; another was facilitating trade; the last function seemed to have been using the water as a medium for leisurely slow-paced boat riding. Basra might have picked up momentum as a tourist destination in the early industrial age of the world which coincided with a time where Iraqi land was colonized by the Ottomans then the British. Post cards (feature image) of Basra’s canals were purchased by European traveler who then mailed home to their families to document their trip through an exotic world. Canals are now a distinct component of the fabric of Basra and many parts of Iraq. The agricultural sector utilizes canals which sprout from the Iraqi rivers to grow their produce. The farmland therefore often follows the traces of the river streams and the irrigation canals discharge runoff into a broader intra-national canal known as the Main Outfall Drain (Figure 6).

The 20^th Century and beyond

Basra governate has a population of approximately 4 million whilst the city has 1.3 million residents. Although the population is much larger than the 165,000 residents that occupied Basra city in 1920, the contemporary city is a desolate version of its former self. The sequence of 20^th century events, at least postdating the 50s, have not been kind to Iraq in general, but Basra took some difficult blows that were particularly piercing in their effects on the city’s access to water resources.    

It is very obviously implicit that water security and management both need to be intact for a social human environ to function even moderately, but in the case of any canal city there is a vividness to how essential water resources are. The river is the artery that delivers water to the capillaries that are the canals. One is bombarded with shockingly disturbing visuals and content when searching the internet for information on Basra today: the vegetation is dull or dying, rubble is everywhere, municipal waste is stagnant, the water is murky and discolored, the canals are clogged, they are dry and full of rubbish (Figure 7). The old images of Basra were more characteristic of the serenity or beauty of canal cities like Yanagawa, Amsterdam and Venice, whereas today Basra’s dilapidation is a reflection of deep flaws in water management systems in the region.

It is important to realize that Basra is a quintessential portrayal of the possible fate of downstream cities along massive riparian networks, so it is a symbol of sorts. All cities have their troubles but Rotterdam, New Orleans and Phnom Penh (all cities that lie at the culmination of large rivers before saltwater discharge) are, at least from a visual standpoint, healthier than Basra, which implies better upstream management. Basra suffers from what can be described as a dilution problem; the waste discharged into the water reaching Bsara far exceeds the natural source water that originates upstream. What is bothersome about this issue is that many of Basra’s problems are due to upstream users, therefore due to forces beyond its control. This does not mean that Basra is void of internal management problems, but for the city to recover there has to be an integrative outlook on the vertical axis of governance. In other words, the central government needs to take into consideration the needs of the local government and vice versa in a harmonious exchange of responsibilities.

Figure 8 is documenting the water networks in Iraq: what is most notable about this convoluted system is the presence of dam constructions in the northern parts of the country. This circuitry shows how disrupted the river networks have become in Iraq let alone the neighboring countries. The 1970s mark the era of large water infrastructural constructions across the region: Turkey, for example, was executing the Southern Anatolia Project (Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, GAP) which sought to encourage the economic development of provinces across the southern belly of the country. Large dams like the Ilısu Dam were utilized for hydroelectric power, water storage and flood control, which could all be incentive for a conservative approach to the release of river water. Similarly, Iran, Syria and Iraq itself are reliant on dams for their own economic progression where the infrastructure is multifunctional and can provide energy or water resources to all respective countries’ agricultural, industrial and municipal sectors.

Thereafter the Sykes Pico agreement of 1916, a series of informal negotiations, talks of treaties and protocols were held amongst the four mentioned modern countries which sought to settle the logistics of each country’s water resource management roles. The result today amongst “watercourse states” (Müşerref Yetim, Pg. 117) are informal rights regimes. The four countries are still missing the formation of a “comprehensive water rights institution” (Müşerref Yetim, Pg. 116) or an organizational body that determines water management responsibilities in order to begin to solve issues of equity from the perspective of allocating river water. 

Surface water, surface water, surface water!

Unique environmental and settlement pattern phenomena can be observed alongside desert rivers which are evident with the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates Rivers: The blue streak of the river is sandwiched within a streak of green vegetation (either naturally occurring or from the green of agricultural land) that runs with the river. Both these colorful threads are then embedded in the sea of beige that is the desert. River cities in the desert seemed to have historically spread themselves thin and long, so as to follow the river stream while inland desert cities are more compact and radial as to protect themselves from the brutality of the sun (as penguins might huddle to create layers of shielding from the harshness of the cold) (Figure 9).

The main body of Iraq is relatively flat, until you reach the northern and north eastern boundaries. The Iraqi rivers draw forward soft sediments from the north and deposit them along the course of the streams, which is partly why Iraq has relied on agriculture to fuel its economy for centuries (before big industry and oil). The wide, flat river floodplains allow for sporadic and frequent flooding which supports the life of vegetation and agriculture, but it also breeds the exciting environment of the Iraqi marshlands (Figure 11).

The marshlands run with the rivers and eventually all water bodies are resolved and funneled into the Shatt Al-Arab (Figure 12), therefore all water passes through Basra as well. There is a domain of rural to urban inhabitants that rely on the river for different reasons in supporting their individual economies. The marsh Arabs sell dairy from water buffalos, they fish for food and harvest reeds for shelter, so they are reliant on the river for its associated ecosystems; the less rural farmers use the water to irrigate their date palm groves; urban Basrawis primarily required the water for drinking and domestic purposes which is fundamentally what all inhabitants, within the urban-rural domain, directly used the river for historically.

In the urban context, domestic water filtered from the river is discolored and salty whilst no river water is used for drinking purposes today. The output from Basra’s water treatment plants (WTPs draw in water directly from Shatt Al-Arab River) was found to fall below WHO and Iraqi environmental legislation standards. Parts of the river itself has a high biological demand on oxygen as well as high concentrations of dissolved and suspended solids. The water treatment plants cannot filter salts effectively and beyond a specific water turbidity they also lose efficiency. Urban Basrawis have become reliant on imported bottled water from Lebanon, Iran, UAE or private local truckers for drinking and domestic purposes (costly expenditures). The country also attempted to provide a temporary solution, which since has become permanent, of bypassing water from the northern Nasriyah pumping station through a “sweet water canal” in order to provide domestic water, but that source is not enough to supply the entire city.

The high-water turbidity is partly inflicted by Basra’s waste being discharged into the river directly, but it is more significantly the result of the sum total of unchecked upstream municipal waste, industrial waste and agricultural runoff that is injected into the river (Figure 13). The agricultural waste is mostly intended to enter the Main Outfall Drain, but one must question how effective the agricultural sector is at efficiently funneling their runoff into the drain and not the river (the canals directionally pump water inland, but it is difficult to determine the direction of the fertilized irrigation water that seeps into the earth). Any point source waste that enters the marshlands will drain through Shatt Al-Arab and Basra before entering the Gulf (Figure 14).  

In summary, the reduction of supplied upstream river water causes salt water from the Gulf to intrude up north towards Basra, additionally increased waste discharge from the north renders the high turbidity of the surface water that flows to the south. Basra sits in between rising salt water and falling wastewater… The Basrawis refer to their river water as “poisonous” because of the small ratio of water to contaminants. Iraq still suffers from the same environmental/climactic concerns as it has historically; the heat of the desert causes high rates of surface water evaporation and there has always been ongoing threats of droughts. In this day and age there are added pressures from population growth, intensity of human activity, consequences of environmental exploitation (mineral and natural resources) and consequences of large infrastructural projects with the contemporary age.

Where can one start? Potential solutions…

It may seem obvious that industrial, agricultural and municipal water loops should be isolated and that any exchange between the three should be very deliberately controlled at strategic points along the chains of use. As convoluted as the water networks are in Iraq, (Figure 8) waste water from different economic sectors is muddled up, leading to disastrous downstream consequences. We have discussed the potential for international negotiations amongst neighboring countries for water release agreements when it comes to large dams, but the government of Iraq must regulate industry so that large industrial sites are responsible for their waste. Legislation like the 1972 Clean Water Act must be implemented, whereafter industries would require permits to pollute through point sources and those industries can set up a trade system for any pollution caps. Those industries must also implement internal systems to filter and reuse their waste water because industrial water is damaging to other sectors and only industrial processes can be used to filter industrial waste. Upstream agriculture also needs to be regulated so that non-point source pollution does not accidently seep into vital water streams. One respective Iraqi ministry must be appointed to the responsibility of ensuring that properties comply with the waste discharge standards.

Once industry is regulated, there is potential for the Main Outfall Drain to be adaptively reused as a discharge for municipal sewage (Figure 15) . If the MOD if flipped into a sewage line, sewage treatment plants should be located along that line so that no sewage seeps into the Gulf Sea and simultaneously the sludge can be extracted from the sewage for practical purposes. Whatever useful biomass from sewage treatment can be used as agricultural fertilizer and any sludge that cannot be used or processed by Iraq internally can continue southwards to the Iraqi ports to be sold and exported. Water that is filtered by the sewage treatment plants can also be used by the agricultural sector to relieve pressure from the natural river stream. Agricultural water supplied by sewage treatment can help with water supply augmentation; more water available in the river and less waste discharged in the river can dilute the water enough so that Basra residents can begin to reuse Shatt Al-Arab.

Barawis today view their water as a nuisance which is partly why municipal waste is dumped into the local streams. If upstream water is filtered, that could change how the locals perceive this natural resource.

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