Catastrophic drought threatens Iraq as major dams in surrounding countries cut off water to its great rivers
5 years, 6 months ago

Catastrophic drought threatens Iraq as major dams in surrounding countries cut off water to its great rivers

The Independent  

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Dams built upriver in Turkey, Syria and Iran since the 1970s have reduced the flow of water that reaches Iraq by as much as half and the situation is about to get worse. He says that Iraq used to get 30 billion cubic metres of water a year from the Euphrates, but now “we are happy if we get 16 billion cubic metres”. “This summer is going to be tough,” says Mr Janabi, a water resources engineer by training who was in charge of restoring the marshes in southern Iraq after 2003. He says: “We used to get five billion cubic metres annually from the Karkhah, and now we get zero.” Iraq was once self-sufficient in food, but now imports 70 per cent of its needs.

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History of this topic

Iraq's mighty Tigris drying up due to human activity, climate change
2 years, 2 months ago

Iraq's mighty Tigris drying up due to human activity, climate change

Firstpost  

Iraq may be oil-rich but the country is plagued by poverty after decades of war and by droughts and desertification Baghdad, Iraq: It was the river that is said to have watered the biblical Garden of Eden and helped give birth to civilisation itself. But Turkey’s ambassador to Iraq, Ali Riza Guney, urged Iraq to “use the available water more …

Iraq’s Great Thirst: Farmers quit as climate change and politics dry up a once-fertile land
3 years ago

Iraq’s Great Thirst: Farmers quit as climate change and politics dry up a once-fertile land

LA Times  

Ask Taha Yassin about Iraqi pomegranates and watch his gaze turn dreamy. This year, inflows from Turkey fell by almost two-thirds; from Iran they’re about one-tenth of what they were, Mahdi Rashid Hamdani, Iraq’s minister of water resources, said in an interview. But for me, it’s a source of worry.” Iran’s exports of produce to Iraq, Khani said, amounted to …

Aid groups: Millions in Syria, Iraq losing access to water
3 years, 4 months ago

Aid groups: Millions in Syria, Iraq losing access to water

Associated Press  

BEIRUT — Millions of people in Syria and Iraq are at risk of losing access to water, electricity and food amid rising temperatures, record low water levels due to lack of rainfall and drought, international aid groups warned Monday. Some 400 square kilometers of agricultural land faces drought, the groups said, adding that two dams in northern Syria, supplying power …

Water crisis and drought threaten 12 million in Syria, Iraq
3 years, 4 months ago

Water crisis and drought threaten 12 million in Syria, Iraq

Al Jazeera  

The unfolding water crisis will soon become an ‘unprecedented catastrophe’ across Syria and Iraq, NGOs say. “With hundreds of thousands of Iraqis still displaced and many more still fleeing for their lives in Syria, the unfolding water crisis will soon become an unprecedented catastrophe pushing more into displacement,” he added. “In the longer term, beyond emergency food and water, they …

No water, no jobs: ISIL survivors struggle in northern Iraq
3 years, 7 months ago

No water, no jobs: ISIL survivors struggle in northern Iraq

Al Jazeera  

When Father Ammar Yako, a Syriac Catholic priest in the majority-Assyrian Christian town of Qaraqosh in northern Iraq, returned to his church in 2016 he found its floors covered in rubble and its artwork pillaged. The economy is static in the city.” After fleeing the ISIL onslaught, many Christians who returned to their millennia-old towns in northern Iraq’s Nineveh Plains …

Iraq gov’t ‘failures’ could lead to more Basra water crises: HRW
5 years, 5 months ago

Iraq gov’t ‘failures’ could lead to more Basra water crises: HRW

Al Jazeera  

Human Rights Watch slams Iraqi government for doing little to provide safe drinking water in the southern region. One year on from Basra’s health crisis, which saw 118,000 people hospitalised due to stomach pains and skin rashes blamed on poor water quality, the Iraqi government has done little to ensure safe drinking water for the southern region of four million …

Water Wars: Drought drove people into the arms of Isis, and it could happen again
5 years, 9 months ago

Water Wars: Drought drove people into the arms of Isis, and it could happen again

The Independent  

Black-clad fighters promised the group of penniless Iraqi farmers together they would conquer “all the lands to Burma”. Wim Zwijnenburg, a lead researcher at the Dutch not-for profit PAX, which has been trying to track the environmental impact on the population, says Isis has used the environment as “a weapon”. Isis also “weaponised water” by taking over critical dams, so …

Iraq's disappearing Eden: Water shortages could force four million people to flee their homes
5 years, 9 months ago

Iraq's disappearing Eden: Water shortages could force four million people to flee their homes

The Independent  

Islanded by cracked and caustic earth, a dome-shaped hut sits beached in the beating heat of the south Iraqi sun. “I saw the rivers there, they were overflowing, I don’t understand why the water can’t be redirected to us,” the buffalo breeder says, rearranging his headscarf. We are expecting 4 million displaced people over the next eight years from the …

Boiling Basra: Residents afraid of their taps as Iraq's water crisis threatens to destabilise the region
5 years, 9 months ago

Boiling Basra: Residents afraid of their taps as Iraq's water crisis threatens to destabilise the region

The Independent  

Chunks of salt the size of fists clutch the pipes of the ramshackle home where Hamid Abdul-Wahib, 44, lives in Basra, Iraq, once dubbed the “Venice of the east” for its abundance of waterways. open image in gallery Chunks of salt crystallise onto the pipes of Hamid Abdul-Wahib's home in the blazing heat of the summer Basra’s water crisis is …

Iraq’s farmers hit hard by water shortages
6 years, 5 months ago

Iraq’s farmers hit hard by water shortages

Al Jazeera  

With one in five Iraqis working as farmers, crippling water shortages have pushed many to find alternative employment. Like many others across the country, this year’s crippling water shortage has left him able to grow just a few hectares of wheat and barley. According to Zafer Abdullah, an adviser to Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources, a particularly dry season and …

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