• Tigris-Euphrates River Basin
• ©Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/
• List of countries in basin: Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey
• Basin size: 765,742 square kilometers
• Average population density: 57 people per square kilometers
• Annual flow of river: 2,363 cubic meters per second
• Main uses: For millennia, the Tigris-Euphrates River has been a major resource for Mesopotamian culture and civilization. Staple crops produced in its basin include wheat, cotton, and olives. Thousands of years ago, the basin represented much of the so-called Fertile Crescent, which was the hotbed for innovation in agriculture and home to a Neolithic farming society. Today, agriculture is the major water user in the basin, but the flow of the river is highly seasonal, and peak flows generally do not coincide with critical irrigation needs. International water management challenges abound. Many of these revolve around the construction and operations of dams and reservoirs in the upper basin by Turkey and Syria. These structures include the world’s largest earth-and-rock fill dam, the Ataturk Dam, built in 1990 on the Euphrates by Turkey.