Many medium and small dams were built in Iraq. These dams are distributed in three major areas. First is the northern area where many dams built in the period after 2003, even there are some that built in 1980s. Second, is the dams built in the eastern valleys, but these prove to be inefficient due to high rate of sedimentation even in the live storage. Third, is the dams in the western desert. These dams were  highly exploited in 1970s and 1980s to harvest as much as possible in this large and promising area and providing the livelihood conditions to settle people. The area has no more projects due to security issues.