Agriculture in Syria runoff most of the year. The river flows southeastward across the arid Syrian Plateau into Iraq, where it joins the Tigris River shortly before emptying into the Persian Gulf. In addition to Syria, both Turkey and Iraq use dams on the Euphrates for hydroelectric power, water control, storage, and irrigation. In the mid-1980s, about a half of the annual Euphrates River flow was used by these three countries. Syrians have long used the Euphrates for irrigation, but, because the major systems were destroyed centuries ago, they now make only limited use of the river's flow. In the mid-1980s, the Euphrates
Santa Ana River in recorded history. The levees along the river burst in many places, flooding part of the Inland Empire into a continuous body of water several miles wide stretching from the mouth of Santa Ana Canyon to where the river cuts through the Santa Ana Mountains. Downstream in Orange County, the river overwhelmed nearly all the existing floodworks and transformed the coastal plain into a transient inland sea. The flow, now calculated as a 1,000-year flood, peaked at roughly , over half the average flow of the Mississippi River. Even after the flood, detrimental conditions continued in the region. For the