Halfeti, a small town in southeastern Turkey along the Euphrates River, offers a surreal dual appeal: a half-drowned old town ...

So well-developed, in fact, that the researchers discovered not only 200 primary and large canals all pulling from the Euphrates, but that those canals fed another 4,000 minor and branch canals.

The Euphrates provides around 85% of Syria’s renewable water, and the two rivers combined make up nearly 100% of Iraq’s supply. Ownership of the rivers’ basins is divided among Turkey, Syria ...