Unprecedented drought crisis looms over Iraq
Shafaq News / Iraq grapples with an escalating drought crisis, propelled by the precipitous decline in rainfall over recent years, primarily attributed to the vicissitudes of climate change.
Compounding the calamity is the waning water levels coursing through the vital arteries of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers—a consequence largely influenced by the hydraulic policies of Iran and Turkey. This perilous confluence of factors portends an imminent humanitarian catastrophe within the nation's boundaries.
Geographically, the most grievously afflicted sectors, the central and southern provinces, confront the most conspicuous drought-induced repercussions, as the Tigris and Euphrates waters recede to levels tantamount to significant scarcity. Conversely, the northern regions bear the benefit of internal tributaries, which afford them a modicum of resilience in the face of this adversity, as delineated by agricultural specialist Khattab Aldhamen.
Of those acutely imperiled by the drought's ramifications, Aldhamen underscores to Shafaq News Agency, "Rural inhabitants and villagers derive their sustenance from aqueous resources for agriculture and livestock husbandry. With the withering of the tributaries enjoining the Tigris and Euphrates, their farmlands lie fallow, their livestock languish, and they undergo egregious financial losses, impelling them to migrate urbanward. Consequently, they are the demographic most grievously impacted by this drought's inclemency."
The agricultural, zoological, and environmental sectors bear the brunt of this drought's iniquitous toll, with the country relinquishing a staggering 400,000 hectares of arable expanse annually to its irksome sway. The subsidence of the Tigris and Euphrates also precipitates water contamination, a plight disclosed by the deputy chair of the parliamentary Agriculture, Water, and Marshes Committee, Zozan Ali Saleh.
Saleh avers to Shafaq News Agency, affirming that "the drought imperils water security, agricultural viability, economic tenability, and societal cohesion. This obliges a united front in surmounting this dire juncture—a prescriptive that involves earnest, decisive negotiations with neighboring states to augment water releases. Simultaneously, internal momentum compels agrarians to adopt modern irrigation methodologies, eschewing profligacy and uprooting encroachments."
Conversely, the erstwhile aqua-agricultural advisor to the parliamentary Agriculture and Water Committee, Adel Almukhtar, vociferates a cautionary note, accentuating the specter of an augmented drought, the prospective denouement of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and an authentically catastrophic nadir, should the fiscalization of water resources and agricultural policy perspicuously languish.
In a discourse shared with Shafaq News Agency, Almukhtar admonishes, "The nation stands at an implicative crossroads, as prognostications tout an extraordinarily copious winter precipitation. Should the Ministries of Agriculture and Water Resources seize this prospect to recalibrate agricultural policies and judiciously steward water resources, proffering pragmatic redress for the impending winter, an aqueous reservoir spanning upwards of six years' worth shall be garnered. Conversely, inertia shall precipitate a perilous condition."
