Basra Water Canal
Bulk conveyance + pumping, 238.5 km open canal at 21 m3/s design discharge, of which 15 m3/s for Basra, 5 m3/s for Nasiriyah and 1 m3/s for Souq al-Shuyukh; terminal storage basins of 750,000 m3 and 5 million m3 in Iraq.
Operational
The record
- Country
- Iraq
- Location
- Basra
- Coordinates
- 30.565, 47.676
- Technology
- Bulk conveyance + pumping
- Capacity
- 238.5 km open canal at 21 m3/s design discharge, of which 15 m3/s for Basra, 5 m3/s for Nasiriyah and 1 m3/s for Souq al-Shuyukh; terminal storage basins of 750,000 m3 and 5 million m3
- Capital cost
- —
- Stage
- Operational
- Owner or client
- Ministry of Water Resources
- Contractor
- —
- Operator
- Basra Water Directorate
- Finance
- Government of Iraq
- Award or start year
- 1992
- Commissioned
- 1997-12
Record last checked 2026-09-18.
History
- 1992
work started on the open canal
- 1993
work suspended
- 1996-03
work resumed
- 1997-12
canal opened at a cost of 9.8 billion Iraqi dinars
- 2026-06
a section of the canal collapsed about ten days after repairs were finished
- 2026-07
a second collapse cut supply in parts of Basra
Sources
5 references
Every field in the record above is taken from the references below. A field that none of them confirms prints as a dash.
- Mukhalad Abdullah, Nadhir Al-Ansari and Jan Laue, Water Resources Projects in Iraq, Irrigation, Journal of Earth Sciences and Geotechnical Engineering 9(4) 2019, pp. 249-274. diva-portal.org.
- Formerly the Wafaa al-Qaid canal, the Basra Water Canal carries Gharraf water to treatment plants in Nasiriyah, Souq al-Shuyukh and Basra.
- Work started in 1992, stopped at the beginning of 1993, resumed on 1 March 1996 and the canal opened on 23 December 1997 at a cost of 9.8 billion Iraqi dinars.
- It is 238.5 km long with a total discharge of 21 m3/s, crosses the Main Outfall Drain twice and passes beneath the Euphrates by a three-pipe siphon fed by pumping station PS1 of 24 units, with PS2 of 19 units at km 165.5; 200 km of the canal were lined with concrete and the rest with soil because of gypsum content, and the unlined sections have leaked and collapsed since 2003. 964media, Basra's main water pipeline passes two-thirds completion. en.964media.com.
- MENA Water Review major projects register and PPP pipeline — compiled from procurer publications, development-bank project pages and trade reporting; each record names its source.
Reports the Badaa canal collapsing in mid-June 2026 about ten days after repairs and again around 1 July 2026, cutting supplies by up to 50 per cent in affected districts, and a 37 km replacement transmission main under construction.