文档介绍：62 WATER
Turkey’s unilateral development of the upper basin has, since 1970, reduced the annual fl ow
of the Euphrates at the Turkey/Syria boundary by almost half. pleted GAP project has
80 dams, 66 hydroelectric power stations and 68 irrigation systems. Turkey maintains that it has
the right to develop water resources that originate within its territory and also that the result of
its development offers the advantage of a regulated water supply to the downstream states. In
order to maintain food self-suffi ciency, Syria has major irrigation plans which are obviously
affected by the decline in fl ow of both the Euphrates and the Tigris. In Iraq, 50 per cent of agri-
cultural production is dependent upon irrigation but, isolated from its neighbours and in some
political chaos, Iraq had little negotiating capability. In 1980 Turkey and Iraq established the
Joint mittee for Regional Waters, which Syria joined in 1983. However, tensions
arose until the signing in 1987 of the Protocol on Economic Cooperation. In April 1990, Syria
and Iraq agreed that the water transiting the Turkey–Syria boundary should be divided propor-
tionately between Syria (42 per cent) and Iraq (58 per cent). In 2002, the government of Turkey
agreed to open discussions over water with both Syria and Iraq.
The Jordan Basin (Map 24) covers only 11,500 km² and is therefore of an entirely different
order in size from the other two. The annual discharge is bcm, approximately 2 per cent of
that of the Nile at Cairo. There are three headwater streams: the Hasbani, the Banias and the
Dan, the last of which alone rises in Israel. Various seasonal wadis provide ephemeral fl ow into
the Jordan but the only major perennial infl ow is from the Yarmuk River. Water in the Basin is
extremely scarce and the co-riparians: Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians; all face water
shortages. With regard to the rivers themselves the situation plex. The Yarmuk