For war-scarred Iraq, climate crisis the next great threat – MENAFN.COM

  • Date: 13-Jul-2021
  • Source: MENAFN
  • Sector:Economy
  • Country:Middle East
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For war-scarred Iraq, climate crisis the next great threat – MENAFN.COM

BASRA, Iraq "” As Iraq bakes in the blistering summer heat, its hardscrabble farmers and livestock herders are battling severe water shortages that are killing their animals, fields and way of life. The oil-rich country, scarred by wars and insurgencies over the past four decades, is also one of the world's most vulnerable to climate change and struggles with a host of other environmental challenges. Upstream dams in Turkey and Iran have diminished the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which are also heavily polluted with sewage, waste and agricultural runoff as they flow southeast through Iraq. Drought has hit the Mesopotamian marshes, said to be the site of the biblical Garden of Eden, where water buffalos and their owners once found respite from summer heat above 50 degrees Celsius. In southern Iraq, where the two big streams merge into the Shatt Al Arab, the reduced flow has caused saltwater intrusion from the Gulf, degrading the waterway that is shaded by lush palm groves on its banks. "Everything we plant dies: the palm trees and the alfalfa which normally tolerates salt water," said Rafiq Taufiq, a farmer in the southern riverside city of Basra. The saline water encroaching ever further upstream has