Co-chairing the World Delta Summit - held on the sidelines of the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France - Rashid told attending world leaders, "Our ancient marshes, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, are in a tragic state, turning into barren, salt-covered lands."
Iraq’s marshes, also known as the Mesopotamian Marshes or al-Ahwar in Arabic, are a vast wetland ecosystem located in southern Iraq, in the floodplain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Historically, they were the largest wetland ecosystem in the Middle East and Western Eurasia, covering an area of up to 20,000 square kilometers.
Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2016, the marshes are turning barren and salt-covered due to a severe combination of factors: critically reduced freshwater flow from the Tigris and Euphrates - primarily caused by upstream damming in neighboring countries, Iran and Turkey - and exacerbated by climate change-induced drought and increased evaporation.
Further compounding the crisis is pollution from industrial, agricultural, and domestic sources, which continues to contaminate the shrinking water bodies amid inefficient internal water management.
Another key factor that has contributed to the ecological damage of the marshes is the deliberate drainage of large portions of the wetlands in 1991 by the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, as a punitive measure against the Marsh Arabs who had rebelled after the 1991 Gulf War. The act of "ecocide" destroyed vast areas, reducing the marshes to about 7 to 10 percent of their original size.
Rashid further cautioned on Monday that "Iraq is witnessing a catastrophic decrease of nearly 40 percent in the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in recent decades," attributing this to "the construction of dams in upstream countries and excessive water extraction," which, he said, "have reduced our great rivers to mere streams."
According to Rashid, these crises - combined with the impacts of "climate change that is accelerating sea level rise and pushing saltwater inland,” among other challenges - “require urgent international action.”
“Solutions exist - they include improving irrigation efficiency, integrated water management, and transitions to renewable energy,” the Iraqi president concluded.
“What we need now is the collective will to implement these solutions before it’s too late.”
The World Resources Institute has notably listed Iraq among the 25 countries facing extreme water stress, highlighting that the country is utilizing over 80 percent of its available water supply and is at high risk of depletion in the event of any short-term drought.
In late May, Khaled Shamal, spokesperson for Iraq’s water ministry, stated that the country is facing its worst water crisis in eight decades. “At the start of the summer season, we should have at least 18 billion cubic meters of water. Today, we only have about 10 billion,” Shamal said, warning, “We have not seen reserves this low in 80 years.”
