Shallow-draft vessels can go as far as Baghdad, but rafts are needed for transport upstream to Mosul. General Francis Rawdon Chesney hauled two steamers overland through Syria in 1836 to explore the possibility of an overland and river route to India.
In 1855, a convoy of rafts carrying antiquities from Victor Place's expedition to Khorsabad, Rawlinson's to Kuyunjik and Fresnel's to Babylon was sunk by local tribes near Al-Qurnah.
Later, the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company was established in 1861 by the Lynch Brothers trading company, who had two steamers in service.
By 1908 ten steamers were on the river.
Mosul Dam is the largest dam in Iraq. Water from both rivers is used as a means of pressure during conflicts. In 2014 a major breakthrough in developing consensus between multiple stakeholder representatives of Iraq and Turkey on a Plan of Action for promoting exchange and calibration of data and standards pertaining to Tigris river flows was achieved.
The consensus which is referred to as the "Geneva Consensus On Tigris River" was reached at a meeting organized in Geneva by the think tank Strategic Foresight Group. In February 2016, the United States Embassy in Iraq as well as the Prime Minister of Iraq Haider al-Abadi issued warnings that Mosul Dam could collapse.
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Page generated on 2021-08-05