Anbar cuts Euphrates releases to protect water reserves

RAMADI — Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources has reduced water releases on the Euphrates River in Anbar governorate to preserve strategic reserves, as falling water levels prompt emergency measures to maintain drinking water supplies.

Anbar’s director of water resources, Jamal Awda Samir, said the Ministry of Water Resources reduced releases from the Haditha Barrage to 150 cubic meters per second as a precautionary step “to ensure the optimal sustainability of the Euphrates River,” he told the state news agency.

Samir said Lake Haditha has recorded an unprecedented decline in water levels, reaching its lowest storage capacity and prompting the reduction in releases toward the Ramadi Barrage. “The current situation is under control, but it may worsen in the coming months in the event of a lack of rainfall and floods, or if water releases from upstream countries (Syria and Turkey) are not secured,” he said.

He urged Anbar’s local government to support water utilities, calling for directives to water directorates and the allocation of funding “to extend intake platforms, especially in large water complexes, to ensure their continued operation.”

Anbar’s director of water, Mahmoud Salem Mahdi, said his department mobilized staff to work around the clock to address the effects of declining water levels, which disrupted several projects and halted some operations “particularly in the districts of Al-Baghdadi, Hit and Ramadi.”

Mahdi said technical teams, working with water resources authorities, extended intake platforms and dredged areas around water intakes “to ensure water reaches the projects,” adding that “work continued until late hours and under very cold weather conditions to deliver potable water to citizens.”

He said the lower water levels also affected quality, prompting crews to increase filtration and disinfection materials and strengthen filtration processes “to ensure quality,” noting that “most treatment work has been completed in preparation for the resumption of pumping in a normal manner.”

The measures come as Iraq continues to face prolonged water stress. The Ministry of Water Resources has said recent rainfall improved reservoir levels by less than 1 billion cubic meters, while overall operational storage capacity stands at about 80 billion cubic meters. Officials have warned that reserves remain well below levels needed to safely meet summer demand, following five consecutive dry seasons and sharply reduced inflows in the Tigris and Euphrates basins.

In July 2025, Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources warned the country was facing its worst drought since 1933, with reserves down to 8% of capacity after inflows to the Tigris and Euphrates fell to 27% of last year’s levels.