KRG lags in protection, conservation, officials warn on World Water Day

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – On World Water Day, Kurdish officials issued a warning about the lack of legal guidelines on the protection and conservation of the Kurdistan Region’s water resources.

The parliament’s agriculture and water resources committee formulized a water conservation proposal at the end of 2017 for the parliament to discuss and enact into law.

“Unfortunately, we neither managed to provide necessary drinking water for the people of Kurdistan, nor could we turn the agricultural lands from arid to arable,” said Abdulrehman Ali Reza, member of the agriculture committee.

“Thus, the biggest problem facing the Kurdistan Region at the moment is not lack of water or a crisis, but lack of a law to conserve and protect water.”

March 22 marks World Water Day. Experts predict the next great conflict will be over water, with control of the vital resource surpassing oil in global importance, especially in the Middle East.

The Kurdistan Region has many rivers, most shared with Iran or Turkey, and the two major reservoirs of Dukan and Darbandikhan that it relies on for its water supply. The dams also contribute to the country’s electricity grid.

The Kurdistan Region has faced the threat of water shortages due to drought and water disputes with neighbours.

Tehran has in the past blocked water flow to the Region. Iran stopped the flow of the Little Zab River, or Zei Bchuk, into the Kurdistan Region town of Qaladze last year. It was partially restored a month later, but only after water levels at Dukan dam dropped.

Iran also frequently restricts the flow of a large quantity of the Alwand River; its Alwand dam has the capacity to store 37 million cubic metres of water. The river crosses the border into the Kurdistan Region near the southern city of Khanaqin.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has threatened in the past to cut off water to central and southern Iraqi provinces if Iran continued to stem the flow of water into the Region.

Akran Ahmed, general manager of dams and water storage for the KRG, told Rudaw that the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources had been implementing a strategic plan since 2012 to control its water resources and provide water security to the Region.

The economic crisis, however, has forced a stoppage of many water-related projects.

The KRG has built 14 dams since 2012, Ahmed explained, but work on another 20 dams has been suspended.

The official explained that another 250 locations have been designated for future dams.

Reza, of the parliament’s agricultures committee, said, “We need at least 300 to 350 dams in Kurdistan.”

According to data from the KRG’s agriculture ministry, the Kurdistan Region has 30 billion cubic metres in surface water resources and five billion cubic metres in groundwater.

KRG lags in protection, conservation, officials warn on World Water Day

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