Monday, July 13, 2009

Tigris and Euphrates

The storied Euphrates river, which supplies Iraq with much of its usable water, is drying up. This ecological and social catastrophe results from politics: Turkey and Syria, which neighbor Iraq, do not have treaties with Iraq governing how much water they can take from the river. They take a lot, much too much.

We live on a small planet; what one country does affects another. For other social and ecological catastrophes caused by the mismanagement of water, see many articles on the Three Rivers Dam in China.

2 comments:

Paul H. Muller said...

BTW, we down here in SoCal are stealing our water from you up there...

Lisa Hirsch said...

And also from Arizona?