Iraq Reservoir Transparency

No structured reservoir storage data is publicly accessible through official Iraqi government channels. The MoWR website (mowr.gov.iq) returns HTTP 403 and no data section is reachable. Storage figures reach the public exclusively through ministerial press statements relayed by state media (Iraqi News Agency) or English-language regional outlets (Rudaw, Kurdistan24, Shafaq News), giving aggregate totals (e.g. '11 billion m³ at Mosul Dam — record high') without systematic breakdown per reservoir. The KRG Ministry of Municipalities and Tourism issues seasonal press-release figures for Dukan and Darbandikhan. No dashboard, bulletin, or downloadable dataset is maintained by any Iraqi government body. Third-party satellite sources (NASA GRACE, DAHITI TU Munich) partially fill the gap but are not government publications.

No REST API, no open data formats (CSV, JSON, GeoJSON) and no machine-readable downloads exist from any Iraqi government source. The MoWR portal is inaccessible (HTTP 403). The only structured, downloadable time-series for Iraqi reservoirs comes from third-party international databases: DAHITI (TU Munich satellite altimetry, available via its own API v2) covers Mosul Dam Lake; AQUASTAT offers an Iraq dams spreadsheet (IRQ-dams_eng.xlsx) dated 2008; and GloFAS ERA5 provides modelled river discharge from 1979. None of these are Iraqi government outputs. No registration-free government endpoint exists.

Audit revision (conservative, 2026-05-29): denominator for RTI coverage is reservoirs with capacity >10 hm³. Iraq has approximately 30-50 reservoirs >10 hm³, dominated by seven major ones — Mosul (11,100 Mm³), Haditha (8,280 Mm³), Tharthar (82,000 Mm³ at max level, a natural depression converted to flood storage), Dukan/Dokan (~6,800 Mm³), Darbandikhan (~3,000 Mm³), Hamrin (~2,400 Mm³), and Duhok — plus medium reservoirs (Adhaim, Bekhme partial, Bawanur, Dohuk, Akre, Shemal, etc.) that together comprise the relevant population. The seven majors represent >90% of national storage capacity by volume. No Iraqi government source publishes systematic per-reservoir data for ANY of them. Storage figures reach the public exclusively through ministerial press statements (Mosul reaching full capacity April 2026; Haditha at 60% drop in 2025; KRG aggregate ~9 Bm³ across 25 dams), giving aggregate totals without temporal regularity or systematic per-reservoir resolution. Third-party satellite coverage (DAHITI) is limited to Mosul Dam Lake. The conservative reading: smaller and medium reservoirs (Adhaim, Bawanur, Dohuk, Akre, Shemal, etc.) are entirely absent from press disclosures; even the major reservoirs are covered only sporadically and aggregately. Effective public coverage ≈ 12% of capacity in any meaningful signal sense. Score 12.

No government-published historical reservoir storage time series is accessible. The most recent AQUASTAT Iraq country profile is dated 2008 and contains static capacity figures, not operational records. DAHITI satellite altimetry for Mosul Dam Lake extends back to approximately 2002 using multi-mission radar altimetry, but this is a German academic dataset, not an Iraqi government product. USGS Data Series 540 documents historical streamflow statistics for Tigris and Euphrates gauge stations but ceased active updates. The Water, Peace and Security / Clingendael governance reports explicitly cite 'scarcity of data released by qualified authorities' and wide variance between estimates as evidence that no reliable official historical archive is maintained.

No regular publication schedule exists. MoWR data reaches the public through ad-hoc spokespersons statements triggered by crises or notable events (record highs, drought emergencies, seasonal warnings). Examples include Minister Aun Thiab Abdullah's April 2026 announcement of Mosul reaching full capacity, and a summer 2025 statement warning of 80-year-low reserves. The KRG DMI (Department of Meteorology and Seismology) issues seasonal press releases. There is no weekly, monthly, or quarterly bulletin analogous to India's CWC bulletin or Spain's MITECO SAIH system.

No measurement methodology documentation is publicly available from MoWR or any Iraqi agency. It is unknown how storage volumes are calculated (bathymetric surveys, stage-storage curves, hydrometric gauging) or what quality-control procedures are applied. Academic literature on Iraq's dams (USGS DS-540; Iraqi Geological Journal 2024 analysis of Mosul and Haditha flow data) uses data sourced from MoWR without citing any published methodology. The LSE Water Security in Iraq report (Shapland, 2023) and the Clingendael/HCSS Water Governance in Iraq paper both describe water governance as 'informal, non-transparent and ineffective,' consistent with the absence of methodological disclosure. The 2009–present USGS EROS training programme for Iraqi scientists aimed at building capacity to produce satellite-derived estimates, implying that independent in-house measurement capacity was still nascent.

Arabic is the sole language of official MoWR communications; the mowr.gov.iq/en/ endpoint exists in the URL structure but returns HTTP 403, so no English content is verifiably accessible. English-language summaries of ministerial statements reach international audiences only via Rudaw, Kurdistan24, Shafaq News, and Al Jazeera — none of which are official government portals. The KRG Department of Municipalities and Tourism publishes English-language press releases at gov.krd/dmi-en/, providing the only official English-language window into Iraqi reservoir conditions, but this covers only the Kurdistan Region. There is no English-language data interface of any kind.