From Flood to Drought

For many years, the incidence of drought in Iraq has been increasing. The first refugees from drought are to be found in a country which lies between two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and which was once rich in water. Birgit Svensson reports from Baghdad

Although it rained at last for three days at the end of November, the sand banks in the Tigris still rise above the water. October saw dust and sandstorms in Iraq such as hadn't been seen for years. Hundreds of people had to be treated in hospital for breathing problems.

The fine dust doesn't just get into the lungs. It's everywhere. It covers the country between the Tigris and the Euphrates with a beige coat, and suffocates everything it lands on. There have always been sandstorms in Iraq, but meteorologists say it's never been as bad as this year.

Clear line of sight for the guns

Some say the Americans are to blame. In the six years since the invasion, their tanks have broken up the surface of the earth and knocked it off its ecological balance. Others say it's the fault of the former president, Saddam Hussein. The dictator had millions of palms chopped down, especially in the south of the country during the eighties, when there was war with Iran, and he wanted a clear line of sight for his army.

Now, dust and sand can make their way unhindered through the desert. Neither of the accusations as to the reason for the drought has been proved. But it's a fact that the country is increasingly being smothered in dust and sand. The phenomenon is easily visible if you travel across the country. Everywhere there are little whirlwinds which develop into thoroughgoing tornadoes of sand. They sweep through the steppes, especially in the West of the country, and coat everything with which they come in contact.

Signs of climate change in Iraq

For Aun Abdullah, the grey-haired director general of the department of resource management in the Iraqi Ministry for Water, this is another sign of climate change. He's been observing the increasing drought in a country which was once so rich in water. His department has statistics for the annual volume of both rivers which go back to 1933. Ever since then, the amount of water has been continuously decreasing.

That's partly because of the increasing number of dams in Turkey and Iran, but it's also got to do with the dramatic reduction in the amount of rain. "There's been less and less rain over the last twenty years," says a worried Abdullah. "In the last two years there's been scarcely any." The river's been running 30 percent less water in the last two years. "A catastrophe is in the making," says Abdullah. Even in winter, Iraq is like a yellow desert, full of dust and sand.

For the first time since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi climate experts and water specialists have been taking part in an international conference when they go to the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, where they'll presenting new figures.

It's high time, says Abdullah, that they discussed things with others and pointed out the problems in Iraq. He's been working with Iraqi water since 1968, originally in Nasiriya, his home town in the south, then in Basra as head of the office for agricultural irrigation.

Build dams – or fight wars

Now the Kurdish minister for water has called him to Baghdad. Experts are scarce in post-Saddam Iraq. "The problem for us today is the need to completely rethink everything," says Abdullah as he describes the challenge. In the past, the job of the water authorities was to protect the people from floods, now it's to administer the shortages.

The last agreement on water use with the other countries which share the Tigris and the Euphrates – Turkey, Syria and Iran – was signed 63 years ago. "Since then, they've built a large number of dams, while we've been fighting wars," explains Abdullah.

How dramatic the situation is can be seen by walking across the bridges over the Tigris in Baghdad. Even in spring, when the melting snow from the Kurdish mountains used to fill the rivers, this year, there were huge sandbanks in the middle of the stream.

The river level kept going down as the year went on. The 45-year-old Ibrahim is worried that the river could one day dry up completely. He used to support his wife and three children by offering trips on the river with his two motor-boats. The wave of terror put a stop to that. "Everything stood still," he says.

Now that the security situation is a bit more relaxed and he could put his boats out again, there's no water. He has to be very careful not to run aground, he says, "as if we haven't already suffered enough!"

The Garden of Eden drying out?

The Iraqi Ministry of Water reported in September that the country has its first drought refugees. People are fleeing from the countryside into the cities. Already, 696,000 hectares of agricultural land are completely dried out, says Muhammad Amin Fars, director of the department of agricultural irrigation in the Ministry of Water of the Kurdish regional government in North-eastern Iraq, where the Tigris crosses the border with Turkey.

According to the Iraqi daily, Al Sabah, if the current situation continues, two thirds of the country's habitable land could be uninhabited by 2030 because of drought and water shortage. The biblical Garden of Eden would have dried out.

But Holger Hoff, an expert on water at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, doesn't think that Iraq will suffer twenty years of drought. "Usually so far, there have been droughts in the region which last between one and several years, but they alternate with wetter periods," he says. All the same, he believes that the variability of the climate could well increase as a result of climate change, leading to an increase in the intensity, duration and frequency of droughts.

Dispute with Ankara and Tehran

So Aun Abdullah has to fight on two fronts: "For one thing, we have to be careful of the resource since it has become so scarce," he says. People have to learn to become aware of the fact that they won't be able to consume water as they like. "We are not threatened by floods, but by shortages," he points out. But that's a change of thinking which cannot take place from one day to the next.

These are long-term processes of thought which have to be given an initial push. And water also has to become a political priority. As Abdullah says, "It can't be right that we sign treaties with Turkey, make huge investments in partnership with Ankara, and then they literally turn the taps off on us with their dams."

The same applies to Iran, from which the tributaries flow into the Tigris. It's even worse with the Euphrates: Turkey has already built five dams on the river, Syria two. Ninety percent of the river's water is used in Turkey before it even reaches Syria. Iraq used to get 28 billion cubic metres from the Euphrates; now it's just 13 billion. Traditionally, the Euphrates was used for irrigation, while the Tigris provided drinking water.

"Water is already more expensive than oil," says Abdullah. And indeed, a bottle of imported Turkish mineral water cost around 40 euro-cents, while a litre of oil costs less than 20.

Potential for escalation

Iraqi politicians have now recognised the explosiveness of the issue. The government intends to push for more regional cooperation in the distribution of water resources. Baghdad wants to ensure that Turkey and Iran allow twice as much water through as they are currently doing. But members of the Iraqi parliament say that economic interests are playing a role in the issue. Turkey would demand a share of Iraq's oil business, and Iran would want to prevent the development of extensive agriculture in Iraq.

For Iraq's Eastern neighbour Iran, Iraq is a lucrative market for its own agricultural products. However, according to Azad Aslan of the Salahuddin University in the Kurdish city of Erbil, Iran has shown signs of compromise.

The Alwan river rises in Iran and flows through Diyala province into Kanaquin, and when it dried out last summer, Iran opened its dams and allowed additional water into Iraq for 20 days. But experts say a permanent solution is urgently needed to prevent tensions from escalating. The World Bank forecasts that water shortages could be the tinder which sets off conflicts – and could even lead to wars in the region. And as people say there: "We've had enough of war!"

Birgit Svensson

Translated from the German by Michael Lawton

Qantara.de

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