ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Authorities in the Kurdistan region have asked people to reduce their water use as the region is currently suffering from one of the largest shortages of water in more than a decade. Erbil’s municipality has imposed mandatory water rationing as of this year and announced it will charge those violating the rationing. The municipality has also urged the public to refrain from washing their vehicles with drinking water. “I have been running down the alley every day since the summer started just to bring water to my house,” one man who lives with his family in a suburban Erbil neighborhood told Rudaw. “It’s not just me, it’s the whole of the neighborhood.” According to the Kurdistan Ministry of Planning, around 14 percent of the Kurdistan region population, or roughly 700,000 people, have limited or no access to drinking water in the three provinces of Sulaimani, Erbil and Dohuk. The three dams in Dukan, Darbandikhan and Dohuk have traditionally supplied the region with tap water. In late 2000, authorities completed a major water station called Ifraz, which with its capacity of 25,000 cubic meters per hour was supposed to end the shortage in the capital. But authorities have said the rising demand due to rapid population growth and systematic waste of water by the public are driving the recent scarcity.
