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BAGHDAD, 22 May 2008 (IRIN) - Iraq is suffering from water shortages that could lead to widespread drought as a result of the water policies of neighbouring countries and an unusually dry winter, the Iraqi Water Resources Ministry has said in a statement.

“The shortage of rain, which last winter was 30 percent of what it was in previous years, has led to an obvious impact on water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates and their tributaries,” the Ministry said.

Iraq’s total water store in reservoirs and lakes is currently 22.07 billion cu. m. - down from the pervious year by 9.19 billion cu. m., it said.

Iraqi officials have accused Syria, Turkey and Iran of either building dams on the Tigris and Euphrates or changing the course of tributaries leading to Iraq, and the government is dispatching official delegations to these countries next week to discuss the problem.

“Iran is holding up the water from two rivers - al-Wan and Serwan - which flow through Iran to Iraq’s southeastern province of Diyala by building dams on them,” said Peshtiwan Ahmed, a member of the parliamentary committee on water resources.

Hassan Ni’ma Alwan, an expert at the Water Resources Ministry, said Iraq stood to lose nearly half of its water resources if the policies being pursued in neighbouring countries continued, especially in conjunction with another dry winter.

“We are expecting to lose nearly half of our water resources - or maybe more than 50 percent - if neighbouring countries continue building dams on the rivers [Tigris and Euphrates],” Alwan told IRIN.

Acute drought

This would lead not only to “acute drought” but to difficulties in other areas such as hydropower, he said.

“Turkey and Syria for their part are reducing water levels in both the Tigris and the Euphrates by doing the same [as Iran]. That could deprive at least one million hectares of Iraqi agricultural land of water, and threaten livelihoods in the marshlands,” Ahmed said.

Turkey is currently building Ilisu dam on the Tigris. One of the largest dams in Turkey, it will produce hydroelectric power, provide improved irrigation, and is scheduled for completion by 2013.

The Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Agriculture have decided only to allow the planting of strategic crops this summer, like rice, corn, sunflowers, cotton, and vegetables, the Ministry statement said. The government has also ordered irrigation rationing for different crops in different areas.

The 1,800km-long Tigris flows from eastern Turkey to southern Iraq, where it joins the Euphrates and eventually empties into the Gulf.

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IRIN Middle East | Middle East | Iraq | IRAQ: Ministry issues drought warning | Early Warning Environment | News Item

BAQUBA, May 15 (IPS) - Farmers in the Diyala province in Iraq have been hit by just about every crisis possible. First the security disaster dried up supplies and markets, then lack of electricity cut irrigation, and now comes a drying up of water resources.

Nothing now seems more difficult in Iraq than the business of farming.

“The shortage of water is the biggest threat that Iraqi agriculture has ever faced,” an employee in the directorate-general of irrigation for Diyala province, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “It threatens not only food but also employment in this city (Baquba, capital of the province).

“The shortage of water can be ascribed to the shortage of rain and snow at the main sources,” the employee at the irrigation centre said.

Many farmers say that they fear that the northern Kurdish-controlled region of Iraq is facing a dry 2008. The mountains there, besides the mountains of southwest Iran and southern Turkey, form a large source of water for Iraq.

The government is doing little to help people over this crisis. “The directorate is impotent and can give nothing to the farmers,” the irrigation centre employee said. “Hundreds of thousands of acres are now desolate, and thousands of people jobless.”

Most villagers work in farming, and now that farming no more sustains people as it did, life there is badly hit. Agriculture in this area kept Iraq supplied, and also produced enough for exports. But now farmers sometimes have a hard time feeding themselves.

“The majority of our village farmers have quit and the rest will follow,” farmer Nasir Ibrahim told IPS. “This is because of obstacles like security, displacement, water shortage, lack of seeds, and lack of backing on the part of the ministry.

“Farming is our source of our living; it’s our job. We used to live in the village; we cannot live in the city to work in offices, even though so many farmers have become policemen.”

The degraded security situation in the province has left farmers with the option only of selling their fruit and vegetables in smaller markets, because accessing the central market has become too dangerous.

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