Photo Archive
The River in Images
Then & Now
Drag the handle to compare
Before
Now
Documenting the river through science, memory, and community knowledge. نشهد على النهر بالعلم، والذاكرة، وما يعرفه أهله عنه. ڕووبارەکە بە زانست و بیرەوەری و ئەوەی خەڵکی دەوروبەر دەزانن، تۆمار دەکەین.
A river is remembered before it is measured. يُحفظ النهر في الذاكرة قبل أن يُقاس بالأرقام. پێش ئەوەی بە ژمارە پێوان بکرێت، ڕووبار لە یاددا دەمێنێتەوە.
This archive extends "It Doesn't Travel Downstream" — the StoryMap that named what Kirkuk already knew: that knowledge about the Khasa has never reached the people who live with it. We are building the archive that fills that gap.
View StoryMap →A river 468 km² in basin, semi-arid in climate, and now semi-absent from memory. This is its timeline.
A lab test can tell you what is in one jar today. Oral history can tell you what disappeared from an entire neighborhood over ten years. Both are evidence. These accounts are drawn from interviews in It Doesn't Travel Downstream.
Your memory belongs here too.
Share an oral account on Instagram →
Community-submitted locations, water sample points, and oral history sites — each pin is a piece of the record.
Not "what is electrical conductivity." But: what does this number mean for the water your family uses?
"Scientists collect water samples. Communities collect memories. The Khasa needs both."
How this data was collected: 37 samples from 8 observation points along the Khassa-Chai River, collected across winter and summer by Abdulamir Qasim (2021). Data reflects conditions under urbanization pressure. These numbers are not alarming in isolation — they become meaningful when compared across time, across neighborhoods, and against what residents remember.
We are not asking you to become a scientist. We are asking your neighborhood to become visible. Share a memory on Instagram, or send a photo or location on WhatsApp.
Record or write a memory about the Khasa — your neighborhood, a person who knew the river, a change you noticed.
Send an old or recent photograph of the Khasa, its banks, or a place you know. Include the location and date if you can.
Name a place along the Khasa that matters to you — where it flows, where it used to flow, or where things have changed.
Photos and locations go to Zheen Salih Abdullah, Project Lead, on WhatsApp. Stories and oral accounts are welcome on Instagram.