ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Heavy rainfall in recent months has significantly boosted groundwater levels across Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, revitalizing dried-up springs and improving dam reserves, officials said on Saturday.
Maytham Ali, director general of Iraq’s groundwater authority, told Rudaw that this year’s rainfall has had a particularly strong impact on shallow water sources, though the effects on deeper reservoirs may take years to materialize.
He explained that shallow reservoirs - those less than 50 meters deep - have benefited substantially from the rains, “particularly in the Kurdistan Region.”
Ali described a visible transformation in mountainous areas, where increased rainfall has restored natural water flows.
“In many mountainous areas, we have seen springs gushing. Water has returned in large quantities even to some springs that had previously dried up,” he said.
The improvement comes after years of severe water stress driven by reduced rainfall, rising temperatures, upstream dam construction, and decades of mismanagement. Iraq consumes more than 80 percent of its available water resources and ranks among the world’s 25 most water-stressed countries, according to the World Resources Institute.
The country relies heavily on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but major Turkish dam projects - including the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) - have reduced water flows to less than 40 percent of historic levels.