6 days ago
From drought to saltwater: Iraq's deepening water crisis
Shafaq News
The water's shimmering surface still flickers with a glimmer of hope for Iraq's fishermen, though it is now a meager promise rather than a bounty. Along the banks of the Euphrates River in the city of Kufa, two fishermen haul in their nets, determined to keep their tradition—and their livelihoods—alive despite an unrelenting drought that has throttled Iraq's rivers and lakes.
In scenes of perseverance, one fisherman set his nets and another cast them out again, day after day, hoping to catch even a few fish to feed their families. But with water levels shrinking to historic lows, the river's bounty has become a dwindling dream.
Drought Deepens
Iraq has struggled with water scarcity for years, but the crisis has worsened dramatically in the past four years, pushing the Tigris and Euphrates—lifelines of the nation—to dangerously low levels.
Data from the Iraqi Meteorological Authority's December 2024 SPI soil drought index showed 'severe to extreme drought ' across Iraq, with readings between 1.6 and 1.8 above normal thresholds—conditions also affecting much of the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, and Turkiye due to persistently low rainfall.
In Basra, the crisis has taken a salty turn. The High Commission for Human Rights office in the city warned that rising salinity, linked to the drought and dwindling river flows, poses grave health and environmental risks to more than three million residents.
Mahdi Al-Tamimi, the office's director, described a sharp rise in salinity in Basra city center and surrounding districts, undermining the already strained water supply.
'The small increases from recent water releases have been too limited to prevent worsening salinity,' Al-Tamimi explained to Shafaq News, voicing alarm at the growing threat of kidney failure and other health crises as brackish water infiltrates homes.
'We call on both the federal and local governments to adopt urgent, permanent measures to protect residents from this escalating hazard,' he urged.
Al-Tamimi demanded that Basra's local government convene a special session—similar to a recent meeting focused on the Zubair district—to map out a comprehensive plan to mitigate the spread of saline water damage from Al-Madina district in the north to the Faw peninsula in the south.
Rivers in Retreat
The crisis is compounded by deeper forces; climate change has dried up rainfall across Iraq, making it one of the five countries most at risk globally, according to UN and international climate reports. Meanwhile, upstream water management by Iran and Turkiye has further cut flows to the Tigris and Euphrates.
A recent UNDP report singled out Iraq's marshes as some of the hardest-hit ecosystems, warning that the country is losing some 400,000 dunams of farmland every year to climate-related pressures.
The long-term outlook is even more dire. The 2019 'Water Stress Index' projected that Iraq could face a future without rivers by 2040, with the twin rivers no longer reaching their final destination at the Gulf.
