News > Twilight of the Tigris: Iraq’s mighty river is drying up

Twilight of the Tigris: Iraq’s mighty river is drying up

Tigris was the river that is said to have watered the biblical Garden of Eden and helped give birth to civilization itself. Iraq may be oil-rich but the country is plagued by poverty after decades of war and by droughts and desertification.But Turkey’s ambassador to Iraq, Ali Riza Guney, urged Iraq to “use the available water more efficiently,” tweeting in July that “water is largely wasted in Iraq.”