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| The Initial Construction on the Bakhma Dam |
Historically, Iraq has been blessed with waters from its two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, which gave it its ancient name, Mesopotamia – the land between the two rivers – as well as its appellation as the Fertile Crescent. Today, Iraq derives 98% of its water from the Tigris and Euphrates, and their tributaries. However, their ability to supply Iraq with its necessary water is severely threatened.
Iraq has suffered a severe drought since 2007.
Water shortages have been exacerbated by Turkey’s building dams on the Upper Euphrates River and Iran building dams on the Zab and other rivers which feed into the Tigris. Already tribes in southern Iraq have engaged in conflict over access to water and Iraq’s southern provinces have accused the northern provinces of taking more water from the Tigris and Euphrates beyond what they are officially allocated.
Clearly, water shortages suggest a rise in domestic and international conflict if not seriously confronted.
However, one area of possible water resources has yet to receive adequate attention. Iraq’s three northern provinces in the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) have ample sources of water. Although the KRG has also been adversely affected by drought conditions, e.g., a substantial number of its 10,000 wells have run dry over the past decade, it is blessed with considerable water. The high mountains in the KRG produce significant water runoff each spring. This runoff has yet to be captured and used in a more efficient manner.
To more efficiently use the water resources in Iraq's Kurdish region, this post discusses the Bakhma (Behme) Dam project near Erbil in the Duhok region. While the dam is one of the largest infrastructure projects ever conceived for Iraq, it has yet to be completed. Were the dam constructed, it could provide a substantial amount of water,and hydropower, which could help address Iraq’s water and electricity shortage needs.
Iraq’s current rulers, both Arab and Kurdish, they have shown little interest in improving the lives of the Iraqi people. Their behavior has been characterized by extensive corruption and does not indicate a concern to develop Iraq and bring prosperity to their constituents. An examination of their achievements over the last 20 years shows no tangible results in contributing to infrastructure development. For example, Iraq's southern city of Basra still lacks adequate electricity and potable water. Unfortunately, Iraq’s development has been lacking in all areas, including the water sector, which has been deliberately neglected with no dams or other water reservoirs having been built.
Historical perspective
In many respects, Iraq’s ancient rulers were more forward looking than the current political elite in maintaining the country’s water supply. During Emperor Hammurabi’s reign, Babylonia, witnessed his care in maintaining and expanding irrigation networks by constructing new canals and dams. By 1760 BCE, when Hammurabi established control over all of Mesopotamia, and especially the city-states of Sumeria, he restored the irrigation canals there to their best condition and brought water back to areas of the south which had previously deprived of it.
Hammurabi’s unification of the entire south and the lands north of Babylon allowed him to construct lengthy canals to the various cities of the empire. These canal, which he named, "Hammurabi-is-the-abundance-of-the-people," ran to Nippur, Isin, Uruk, Larsa, Ur, and Eridu, and covered a stretch of land covering 160 kilometers. These irrigation works brought economic development and increased the wealth of the population to unprecedented levels.
The idea of the Bakhma Dam
Iraq’s Hashimite monarchy has often been vilified, given its repression of Iraq’s nationalist movement from 1921 until its overthrow in 1958 and lack of addressing the needs of the poor. In the area of water resources, however, the monarchy implemented a number of projects, the most important of which was the Wadi Thathar Flood Control Project between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers north of Baghdad. The project, which began in 1952, and was completed in 1956, was designed to divert waters from the spring floods into Lake Tharthar to prevent flooding in Baghdad and other Iraqi towns and villages and to increase water for irrigation.
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| The Wadi Tharthar Flood Prevention Project |
In 1937, a British advisory council conducted the first geological study of the project area in Iraqi Kurdistan. Experts issued a report on its explorations and recommended the construction of a high dam at a site near the village of Bakhma at the entrance to the Klei Bekhmael Gorge. In 1939, British geologists indicated the most suitable site of a dam would be at the entrance to the gorge, the product of the Zab River, the largest river within Iraqi Kurdistan, with a watershed extending well into southern Turkey and with many smaller tributaries, such as the Rawanduz River. Finally, in 1941, a report developed by a British irrigation engineer proposed constructing a dam at the height of 470 meters high, with capacity storage of about 1.25 billion cubic meters of water.
After World War 2, the Hashimite monarchy formed by the Supreme Council for the Study of Water Resources and Development in Iraq to conduct geological surveys and produce academic studies between 1946 and 1949. The goal was to obtain greater technical information about the Bakhma Dam site and its facilities. The dam’s key objective was to control the waters of the Upper Zab River and reduce the floods threatening Baghdad. In 1950, the Supreme Council approved a study for constructing a high dam in the Bekhmal Gorge for flood control and using the dam as a strategic reservoir for irrigation and farming in fertile areas below the dam.
The Bakhma Dam project is still considered one of the vast and promising infrastructure projects designed to address Iraq's water shortage. The dam is located near the district of Aqrah in the Behdinan region of the KRG and 45 miles from its capital, Erbil. It is considered the most expensive of Iraq's dams, and it faces many technical obstacles. Cost estimates indicate that it would require $7 billion to complete. In light of Iraq’s current revenues from oil sales, this amount does not seem prohibitive, especially if foreign funding, e.g., from the United State and EU, could cover part of the dam’s construction costs.
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| Bakhma Dam water diversion tunnel |
The Bakhma Dam’s cost was calculated according to the amount of water being stored which is measured in billions of cubic meters. The Harza Company report, which indicated that the higher the dam, the lower the cost per billion cubic meters of storage, recommended that the most economical cost for the construction of the dam would be a height of 550 meters.
The company’s report estimated that the Bakhma Dam’s reservoir could hold 8.6 billion cubic meters of water which could irrigate 2 million plots of agricultural land. Further it would increase the water supply of the Tigris River, reduce flooding in Baghdad, and generate 2-3 billion kilowatt-hours of electrical energy.
In 1975, given the high oil prices at the time, the Iraqi Ministry of Irrigation asked Harza to re-evaluate its proposal for the Bakhma Dam project. The company was asked to present several alternatives so the Ministry could choose the optimal proposal, according to Iraq's need for water for irrigation, agriculture, and electricity generation at the lowest cost. The company submitted its report in 1976, which offered indicated three alternative placements for the dam, with the confluence of the Rawanduz River with the Greater Zab tributary at the entrance to the gorge being chosen as the most suitable site.
In 1978, the Ministry of Irrigation requested seven foreign consulting companies from Japan, France, the United States, and communist bloc countries to submit offers and conduct detailed geological and hydrological examinations, preparing final designs and directing the implementation work of the dam. Studies to build the dam began in March 1979.
Bakhma Dam Description
In 1987, the first phase of the Bakhma Dam’s construction was begun. The dam’s height was to be 750 ft, its length 2000 ft, and it was to have a storage capacity of 17 cubic kilometers and surface area of 100 kilometers (39 square miles)—with a total estimated cost was about $1.5 billion.
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| The Bakhma Dam Project and its Reservoir |
The contract to build the dam was awarded to a consortium of Turkish-Yugoslavian firms, ENKA Hidrogradnja and Energoprojekt. A colossal tunnel was built to drain the excess water. The diversion tunnel the size of car tunnels was dug into the mountain by the Turkish company ENKA, a company specializing in the field of engineering and power plants, which removed thousands of tons of rock. The Yugoslavian company, Hydrocravenia, helped build the chambers for the underground powerhouse and transformers.
Work suspension
Between 1987 and 1991, the two companies completed about 35% of the dam. Construction was halted with the outbreak of the second Gulf War in 1990 after the Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. The war was followed by the popular March 1991 uprising (Intifadat Sha'ban). As a result of this uprising, most Kurdistan region broke away from control of the central government. The equipment and machinery of the two companies were looted, so the Iraqi government was forced to compensate for the losses of the Turkish and Yugoslav companies at a cost of $175 million dollars.
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| The Bekhmel Gorge |
However, the Bakhma Dam project did encounter some opposition. A Kurdish leader objected to the establishment of the dam because his clan resides in the region of Aqrah, east of the Great Zab River. Several villages, his tribe complained, would be flooded with the waters of the dam's lake, erasing the history and traces of those villages and the graves of the former prominent sheiks.
On November 17, 2019, Mr. Kifah Mahmoud, an adviser to the Kurdish Democratic Party, claimed that "Bakhma dam was designed to separate (the) Soran (area) from Badinan (Bahdinan), in a malicious attempt to divide the partition by natural means.” However, new construction designs were formulated so that the reservoir would not constitute a water barrier between different regions in Kurdistan.
The Politics of the Bakhma Dam
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| The Bekhmel Gorge area inundated by Bakhma Dam |
Could the current water crisis change the calculus of the Baghdad and Erbil political elites and permit the dam project to finally move forward? First, the KRG leadership is well aware is that the water crisis in the south can only produce political instability. In neighboring Syria, the severe drought along the Euphrates led to the Arab Spring uprisings there and subsequently helped the Islamic State recruit local farmers and youth. A destabilized Arab Iraq would present a major challenge to the landlocked KRG.
Second, the rise in oil prices makes it easier for the Federal Government in Baghdad to make concessions on the division of Iraq’s oil wealth. While the sharing of oil wealth with the KRG needs to be shielded from corruption (and in the south as well), e.g., designated for specific uses such as KRG government salaries, pensions, and infrastructure projects, greater flexibility on sharing Iraq’s oil wealth could incentivize the Kurdish political elite to allow the Bakhma Dam project to move forward.
Third, Iraq could use the ties it has recently developed with Saudi Arabia to raise funds from the kingdom and the GCC to invest in the KRG’s agrarian sector. Much of the Kurdish region's agriculture was destroyed during Saddam’s Husayn’s brutal ANFAL Campaign of the later 1980s when over 150 Kurdish villages were razed to the ground. Currently, with many KRG government employees returning to the agricultural sector as a result of sporadic salary payments, now would be the time to revive Kurdish agriculture. This could help assure the KRG and Iraq’s food security and lessen Iraq’s dependence on food imports.
To assure that the Bakhma Dam project was resumed, it would be important for the United Nations and the European Union to serve as mediators between Baghdad and Erbil. These parties would be viewed as neutral arbiters who could hopefully encourage the two political elites to come together on promoting the dam which would serve both Kurds and Arabs.
If neutral mediators could bring the Federal Government and KRG to develop a comprehensive national water policy, it might encourage Iraq to try and establish a regional water authority including Iraq, Iran and Syria. The problem of access to water is only going to become worse as global warming increases. A water authority encompassing Iraq, Turkey and Iran could provide a model for the entire MENA region.
Finally, accommodation should be made for the estimated 20-40,000 Kurds whose villages would be destroyed by the Bakhma Dam’s construction and the heritage which would be lost to the dam’s large reservoir. Drawing up efforts in Egypt to save precious heritage during the building of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s, similar measures should be taken to assure that as much heritage as possible is saved for posterity.
