And the latest was issued by the Norwegian Refugee Council, which warned of the exacerbation of the disaster with high temperatures, low levels of rain and drought throughout the region, which leads to depriving the people of drinking water and irrigation water, and to impeding electricity generation operations as a result of the scarcity and depletion of dams water, which in turn affects Over the work of basic public utilities, including the health services sector.
The report indicates that more than 7 million citizens in Iraq are threatened by the loss of access to the Euphrates water in addition to drought, which exposes hundreds of kilometers of agricultural land to the risk of total drought.
The report confirms that the water supplying large areas of agricultural land, fisheries, power generation facilities and drinking water sources has dried up in Iraq, and it is expected that wheat production will decrease by 17 percent in Nineveh Governorate as a result of drought, while in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, production is expected to decrease by half. .
These alarming numbers reflect the severity of the crisis afflicting Iraq as a result of drought, desertification, the decline in the groundwater level, and the decline in the agricultural and other interrelated productive sectors, threatening the country’s food and water security.
They lose everything
Iraqi farmer Hassan Aref said, in an interview with “Sky News Arabia”: “With drought and severe water scarcity, high prices of fertilizers, pesticides and other agricultural requirements, and with the stagnation of markets due to health and economic crises, the money we spend on our crops is in vain, Because we not only gain anything, but also lose financially, not to mention the loss of our efforts and fatigue.”
And to find out the dangers of this complex crisis, which threatens with disasters affecting the livelihood of Iraqis and their drinking water, Ramadan Hamza, senior expert on water strategies and policies, and a faculty member at the Iraqi University of Dohuk, said in an interview with Sky News Arabia: “Iraq is suffering from a severe drought crisis, The entire region faces abnormally dry climatic conditions.
Hamza added, “More than 50 percent of them are already suffering from severe drought, as many rivers are experiencing water scarcity, fish deaths and the decline in the levels of water wells.”
The signs are all negative
He added, “There are many ways to measure drought, but all indicators in Iraq tell us bleak stories. Rainfall is less than half the normal rate, and dam reservoirs on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers have dropped to record levels. For example, storage levels in the two largest natural reservoirs, Al Thathhar and Al Habbaniyah are By 40 percent, which is much less than the normal rate for this time of the year, and springs and springs were a source of drinking and agricultural water for many villages and countryside, not as they were in previous years.
And he continues: “The effects of the drought and its harsh conditions now sweeping Iraq have dire consequences for people, the environment and nature. Small and rural communities, many of which have a larger proportion of low-income families, often feel the worst effects.”
Hamza adds, “Fresh water ecosystems are exposed to a serious threat from low water flows from the watery neighboring countries of Iraq, Turkey and Iran, and rising temperatures, and water quality problems are exacerbated by the increased concentration of salts and pollutants and low levels of oxygen, and the lack of surface water for agriculture leads to more pumping groundwater, and the continuation of overdrafts leads to subsidence of the land, drying up of water wells, and disruption of groundwater storage and ratios.
And about ways for Iraqi farmers to overcome drought problems, Hamza says: “To confront the water shortage, farmers must search for alternative supplies and practices, such as changing the types of crops grown and installing effective irrigation systems, with the expansion of efforts to implement sustainable water management.”
He added: “It is necessary to have appropriate and effective responses to combat drought, in terms of developing the efficiency of water use in urban and agricultural areas, expanding non-conventional water sources such as water harvesting, rainwater and recycled water, and voluntary changes in consumption behavior, all of which can help reduce the severity of this drought.
It is time for the Iraqi government to adopt translating water security plans into concrete actions, and these plans must be compatible with appropriate resources, provide sustainable financing for irrigation and water projects, establish effective non-traditional regulatory frameworks, and raise community awareness of the importance of water security for sustainable development, because The current administrative structures for both the drinking water and irrigation systems are characterized by poor management and inconsistent water laws.”
Terrible decline in resources
And the professor at the University of Duhok continues: “The water balance in Iraq has changed a lot, with the passage of time, so that Iraq has turned as a country characterized by water abundance, to a country suffering from the specter of thirst. sectors in Iraq, and then shifted to a state of water balance in the eighties and the end of the year 2000, when the demand for water was equal with the available water.”
And Iraq became suffering from a state of water deficit, when its water resources became less and much more than what is required to meet the needs of agriculture and other sectors, according to the Iraqi academic.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/how-did-the-situation-in-iraqs-waters-change-from-abundance-to-scarcity/
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