Where Do the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers Meet

River organization in the Middle Orient

Tigris–Euphrates river system
Ecology
Realm	Palearctic
Biome	temperate flood plain rivers and wetlands
Geography
Area	879,790 km2 (339,690 sq Wolverine State)
Countries	List Turkey Syria Iraq Iran Koweit
Oceans surgery seas	empties into the Persian Gulf
Rivers	Tigris, Euphrates, Greater Zab, Lesser Zab.

The Tigris–Euphrates River river system is a large river system in Midwestern Asia which discharges into the Persian Gulf. Its principal rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates along with smaller tributaries.

From their sources and upper courses in the mountains of orient Turkey, the rivers descend through valleys and gorges to the uplands of Syria and northern Republic of Iraq and then to the sediment plain of focal Irak. Other tributaries join the Tigris from sources in the Zagros Mountains to the east. The rivers flow in a southmost-easterly direction through the central plain and combine at Al-Qurnah to form the Shatt al-Arab and discharge into the Asian nation Gulf.^[1] The rivers and their tributaries drain an expanse of 879,790 km²,^[2] including portions of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Kuwait.^{[3] [4] [5] [6] [7]}

The region has diachronic grandness American Samoa part of the Fertile Crescent region, in which Mesopotamian civilization is believed to have first emerged.

Geography [edit]

The Tigris–Euphrates Basin is shared between Turkey, Syria, Irak, Iran, and Kuwait.^{[6] [3] [4] [5] [7]} Many Tigris tributaries originate in Persia and a Tigris–Euphrates confluence forms part of the Iraq–Kuwait margin.^[8] Since the 1960s and in the 1970s, when Turkey began the GAP project in earnest, water disputes have got regularly occurred in accession to the associated dam's personal effects on the environment. In addition, Syrian and Iranian dam construction has also contributed to political tension inside the basin, particularly during drought.

The ecoregion is characterized by cardinal large rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. The high mountains in the upper watershed receive more rain and snow than the lower watershed, which has a calorific and desiccate subtropical climate. Annual snow melt from the mountains brings spring floods, and sustains permanent and seasonal marshes in the lowlands.

The chaste 'tween the two rivers is known as Mesopotamia. As part of the larger Fertile Crescent, it saw the earliest emergence of literate person urban civilization in the Uruk period, for which reason it is often delineated as a "Rocker of Civilization".

There is a large floodplain in the frown basin where the Euphrates, Tigris, and Karun rivers converge to make the Mesopotamian Marshes, which includes permanent lakes, marshes, and riparian forest. The hydrology of these huge marshes is exceedingly important to the ecology of the entire high Persian Disconnect.

History [redact]

The conflux of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is believed to have been the place where the first civilisations emerged. From ancient multiplication empires arose and fell in the river washstand, including Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, Assyria, and the Abbasid Caliphate.

Ecology [edit]

The most abundant fishes are species of barbs (Barbus), some of which can reach up to two meters in length. Much species have been remarkable nutrient sources for residents for thousands of years. Many species go up seasonally between the river and the marshes for spawning, eating, and overwintering. The Hilsa shad (Tenualosa ilisha) is an burning food fish which lives in the coastal amniotic fluid and spawns in the glower reaches of the basin. Other sea species occasionally visit the lower berth reaches of the rivers; bull sharks (Bull shark) used to swimming up the Tigris as far as Baghdad.^[9]

Autochthonal fish species in the lower basin include Glyptothorax steindachneri and Hemigrammocapoeta elegans, and likewise American Samoa two cave fishes, Caecocypris basimi and the Iraq blind barb (Typhlogarra widdowsoni), from a cave habitat near Haditha on the Euphrates.^[9]

One-third of the fish species in the upper watersheds are endemic, including species of Aphanius, Glyptothorax, Cobitis, Orthrias, and Schistura. 2 blind Pisces the Fishes species, the Iran undermine gib (Iranocypris typhlops) and the Zagros eyeless loach (Eidinemacheilus smithi), are endemic to cave systems in Iran's upper Karun River watershed.^[10] The Batman River loach (Paraschistura chrysicristinae) is a Critically Endangered fish species endemic to the Batman and Ambar rivers, Turkish tributaries of the Tigris. The species is vulnerable by drouth, habitat death, and habitat fragmentation from construction of the Batman Dam. Information technology had non been discovered since 1974 and was feared extinct until a 2021 expedition netted 14 fish living above the Batman Dam.^[11]

Mesopotamian Marshes [edit]

The Mesopotamian Marshes in southern Iraq were historically the largest wetland ecosystem of Western Eurasia. The aquatic flora includes reeds, rushes, and papyrus, which keep going numerous species. Areas around the Tigris and the Euphrates River are very fertile. Marshy Land is home to water birds, some stopping hither while migrating, and some spending the winter in these marshes live off the lizards, snakes, frogs, and fish. Other animals found in these marshes are water buffalo, two endemic rodent species, antelopes and gazelles and small animals such every bit the jerboa and several other mammals. The wetland birds Basra reed warbler (Acrocephalus griseldis) and Iraq babbler (Argya altirostris) are endemic to the Mesopotamian Marshes. The Basra reed warbler is endangered. Another wetland endemic species, Bunn's short-caudate bandicoot rat (Nesokia bunnii), is possibly extinct.

Their drainage began in the 1950s, to reclaim nation for agriculture and oil color geographic expedition. Saddam Saddam extended this work in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as part of ecological warfare against the Marsh Arabs, a malcontent group of people in Baathist Iraq. However, with the breaching of the dikes by local communities after the 2003 invasion of Al-Iraq and the ending of a quaternary-year drought that same twelvemonth, the process has been reversed and the marshes have experienced a substantial value of recuperation. The aeonian wetlands now cover more than 50% of pre-1970s levels, with a remarkable regrowth of the Hammar and Hawizeh Marshes and close to recovery of the Medial Marshes.^[12]

Ecological threats [edit]

This visualization shows variations in total water storage from typical, in millimeters, in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins, from January 2003 through December 2009. Reds represent drier conditions, spell blues represent wetter conditions. The effects of the seasons are evident, as is the major drought that hit the region in 2007. The majority of the water lost was imputable reductions in groundwater caused aside imperfect activities.

Iraq suffers from desertification and soil salination due in large partially to thousands of geezerhood of agricultural activity. Water and plant life are thin. Saddam Hussein's governing water-control projects drained the inhabited marsh areas east of An Nasiriyah aside desiccation Oregon diverting streams and rivers. Shi'a Muslims were displaced under the Ba'athist regime. The destruction of the spontaneous habitat poses serious threats to the area's wildlife populations. There are also inadequate supplies of potable water.

The marshlands were an extensive natural wetlands ecosystem which developed over thousands of long time in the Tigris–Euphrates basin and once covered 15–20,000 square kilometers. In the 1980s, this ecoregion was put in grave danger during the Iran–Al-Iraq War. The Mesopotamian Marshes, which were inhabited past the Ngaio Marsh Arabs, were almost completely drained. Although they had started to recoup after the fall of Ba'athist Al-Iraq in 2003, drought, intensive dam construction and irrigation schemes upstream have caused them to plain up once Sir Thomas More.^[13] Accordant to the In agreement Nations Situation Program and the AMAR Charitable Foundation, between 84% and 90% of the marshes stimulate been destroyed since the 1970s. In 1994, 60 percent of the wetlands were destroyed away Saddam Hussein's regimen – drained to allow military access and greater political control of the native Marsh Arabs. Canals, dykes and dams were built routing the body of water of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers around the marshes, instead of allowing water to move slowly through the marshland. Quarter of the Euphrates was dried up owed to re-routing its water to the sea, a dam was built so pee could not back down from the Tigris and sustain the former marshland. Some marshlands were cooked and pipes buried belowground helped to carry away water for faster drying.

The drying of the marshes led to the disappearance of the salt-tolerant vegetation; the plankton lavish waters that fertilized close soils; 52 native Fish species; the wild boar, red fox, buffalo and weewe birds of the marsh home ground.

Climate exchange in Turkey and climate change in Iraq are also a threat.^[14]

Water gainsay [edit]

The result of irrigate rights became a point of contention for Iraq, Turkey and Syrian Arab Republic origin in the 1960s when Turkey implemented a world-works project (the Breach project) aimed at harvesting the water from the Tigris and Euphrates River rivers through the construction of 22 dams, for irrigation and hydroelectric energy purposes. Although the water dispute betwixt Joker and Syria was many tough, the GAP design was also perceived As a menace by Iraq. The tautness between Turkey and Iraq nearly the issuance was increased aside the effect of Syria and Turkey's participation in the UN embargo against Iraq following the Persian Gulf War. However, the issue had never become as significant as the water dispute between Turkey and Syria.^[15]

The 2008 drouth in Republic of Iraq sparked new negotiations between Iraq and Meleagris gallopavo over trans-boundary river flows. Although the drought affected Republic of Turkey, Syria and Iran as well, Iraq complained regularly about remittent water flows. Iraq in particular complained near the Euphrates River River because of the large amount of dams on the river. Turkey agreed to addition the flow several times, beyond its means ready to supply Iraq with extra water. Iraq has seen significant declines in water storage and crop yields because of the drouth. To attain matters worse, Iraq's water infrastructure has suffered from years of conflict and neglect.^[16]

In 2008, Turkey, Iraq and Syria agreed to restart the Joint Tripartite Committee along water for the three nations for better water supply resources direction. Joker, Irak and Syrian Arab Republic sign-language a memorandum of reason along September 3, 2009, ready to beef up communication inside the Tigris–Euphrates River Basin and to develop joint urine-flow-monitoring Stations. Along September 19, 2009, Turkey formally united to increase the current of the Euphrates River to 450 to 500 m³/s, but sole until October 20, 2009. In interchange, Iraq agreed to merchandise petroleum with Turkey and supporte curb Kurdish militant body process in their border region. One of Turkey's last large GAP dams on the Tigris – the Ilisu Dam – is powerfully opposed by Iraq and is the source of political strife.^[17]

In media [edit]

• Dawn of the World, cinema, 2008.
• Zaman, The Man From The Reeds, pic, 2003

See also [edit]

• Soil salinity
• Mesopotamian Marshes
• Shatt aluminum-Arab

References [redact]

1. ^ "Euphrates River". Encyclopædia Britannica. 17 December 2017. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
2. ^ "Euphrates–Tigris River Basinful". AQUASTAT Survey 2008, UN Food and Factory farm Organization. Accessed 30 June 2020. [1]
3. ^ ^{a b} Saint Matthew the Apostle Zentner (2012). Plan and impact of water treaties: Managing mood change. p. 144. ISBN9783642237430. The Tigris-Euphrates-Shatt al Arab is shared between Iraq, Iran, Syria, Kuwait and Turkey.
4. ^ ^{a b} "Lower Tigris & Euphrates". feow.org. 2013. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17.
5. ^ ^{a b} Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Speedy Reaction Team (February 3, 2003). "Mesopotamia" – via Internet Archive.
6. ^ ^{a b} Deniz Bozkurt; Omer Lutfi Sen (2012). "Hydrological response of past and future clime changes in the Euphrates-Tigris Washbowl" (PDF). p. 1. The Euphrates-Tigris River River basin, covering areas in 5 countries (Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Kuwait), is a major water supply resource of the Middle East.
7. ^ ^{a b} "Tigris-Euphrates River system". Encyclopædia Britannica. 17 December 2017.
8. ^ Dan Caldwel (2011). Convolution of Conflict: U.S. Policy Toward Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. p. 60. ISBN978-0-8047-7749-0.
9. ^ ^{a b} "Lower berth Tigris & Euphrates River". Freshwater Ecoregions of the Human race. Accessed 30 June 2020. [2]
10. ^ "Upper Tigris & Euphrates". Freshwater Ecoregions of the World. Accessed 30 June 2020. [3]
11. ^ Greene, Graeme (2021) "Batman loach returns: fish feared dead found in Turkey". The Guardian 9 December 2021. [4]
12. ^ Asian nation Marshlands: Unexcitable Progress to Recovery Archived 2011-06-08 at the Wayback Machine (UNEP)
13. ^ "Iraq marshes face grave new threat". February 24, 2009 – via news.bbc.carbon monoxide.uk.
14. ^ "Mood". climatechangeinturkey.com . Retrieved 2021-02-19 .
15. ^ Uzgel I., 1992. GÜVENSİZLİK ÜÇGENİ: TÜRKİYE, SURİYE, Republic of Iraq VE SU SORUNU, MÜLKİYELİLER BİRLİĞİ DERGİSİ, 162, p.47-52
16. ^ "Turkey lets more water out of dams to Republic of Iraq: MP". Reuters. 23 May 2009.
17. ^ "Meleagris gallopavo to up Euphrates run over to Iraq". AFP. 19 September 2009. Archived from the original on 31 December 2010.

External links [edit]

• Persian Gulf look-alike
• BBC: Al-Iraq marshes' retrieval 'in doubt'

Where Do the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers Meet

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigris%E2%80%93Euphrates_river_system

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