Iraq
An aerial view of a herd of buffaloes swimming together past a fishing boat in the Shatt al-Arab waterway north of Iraq's southern city of Basra, on April 13, 2022. Photo: Hussein Faleh/AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A senior adviser at the Iraqi water resources ministry warned on Thursday that the country’s water reserves have decreased by half since last year, due to a combination of drought, lack of rainfall and declining river levels, as officials continue to caution a deeply concerning environmental and humanitarian situation in Iraq.
"Water reserves are far lower than what we had last year, by about 50 percent because of poor rainfall and the quantities arriving from neighbouring countries," Ministry of Water Resources adviser Aoun Diab told AFP, attributing the concerning situation to "the successive years of drought: 2020, 2021 and 2022".
Water levels in the Euphrates and Tigris rivers - shared by Iraq, Syria, and Turkey - have dropped considerably in recent years. In the latest stark warning of the threats a heating climate poses to the country, a report by Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources towards the end of last year predicted that unless urgent action is taken to combat declining water levels, Iraq’s two main rivers will be entirely dry by 2040.
"This serves as a warning on how we must use (water resources) in the summer and next winter,” Diab added. “We have to take these factors into account in our planning for the agriculture sector.”
Water pollution is also a high concern for officials. The spokesperson for the water ministry, Ali Radi, told state media on Thursday that, "Water poisoning or contamination is a very dangerous matter," and that “sources of water pollution from sewage stations, factories and laboratories to hospital waste… is a very dangerous issue."
Related: New report urges immediate action to tackle water stress in Iraq’s Euphrates-Tigris basin
According to Radi, "there is governmental, judicial and military coordination and support, as well as coordination with local governments and water departments in the governorates," including "dozens of lawsuits that have been raised against violators.” The official stressed "the need to rehabilitate, maintain and introduce modern technologies to treatment plants located in sewage plants or hospitals."
Last year, Iraqi Minister of Water Resources Mahdi Rashid al-Hamdani accused Iran of digging tunnels and trying to alter the natural water flows. His ministry in December announced the completion of procedures to file a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice against Iran.
Salah al-Hajj, representative from the United Nations’ (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), told Rudaw earlier this month that Iraq’s wheat production is expected to significantly decrease during the 2022 harvest season, citing the lack of rain as the reason for the massive drop.
“If we consider Nineveh, there is a clear estimation that a main portion, a minimum of 70 or 80 percent of the crops dependent on rain, will not reach the harvest stage… There’s a shortage of wheat production for this season as a result of lack of rain,” Hajj said, adding that Iraq will need to resort to importing products to address the shortages.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has long warned that the water available in Iraq is set to decrease by around 20 percent by 2025, threatening the long-term stability of Iraq’s agriculture and industry. According to another concerning report by the United Nations, dams built in neighbouring Turkey and Iran have also dramatically reduced the combined volume of the Tigris and Euphrates by up to 60 percent.
Because of the water crisis, the agriculture ministry announced in October that the government had approved a plan to reduce the country’s winter crops in irrigated areas by 50 percent.
In November, the World Bank warned that Iraq is running out of water, with devastating consequences for the country’s employment and economy, stressing the failure to manage water resources as a key damaging factor. The World Bank’s April update cautioned that further intensified climate change effects and water shortages will decrease agricultural production.
Iraq is the fifth-most vulnerable nation in the world to the effects of climate change, including water and food insecurity. Low rainfall levels and high temperatures caused by climate change are depleting water supplies across the country. Much of Iraq’s agricultural lands depend on irrigation, but dams and reservoirs were at record-low levels this summer.
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