Iraq has been hit by 3 years of drought, poor rainfall and reduced river flows, and the United Nations has ranked it as the fifth country with some key effects of climate change.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), an aid organization active in the oil-rich but war-torn country, surveyed 1,341 families in five provinces in August, Basra, Nineveh and Anbar.
“We are seeing the continued damage caused by the climate and water crisis in Iraq,” James Munn, country director at NRC, said in a statement released alongside the survey results.
“People see their fertile soil and disappear year after year. “
The NRC study found that “the crisis has had a rapid impact on access to clean water and irrigation, as well as crop production,” forcing 35% of households to reduce the amount of food they eat. they consume.
Sixty-one percent of families “reported that their access to drinking and domestic water had been disrupted over the past year,” NRC said.
In the southern province of Basra, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers converge before emptying into the Gulf, some spaces do not have drinking water “due to falling water levels and upper salinization. “
According to the survey, 25 of the families that count on agriculture “have witnessed more than 90 poor wheat harvests this season. “
“Due to the effect of drought on agricultural production, a quarter of farming families said they had not made any benefit from promoting their wheat crop this year,” he added.
Apart from wheat, “42% of the families surveyed said they had noticed a drop in their production of barley, fruits and vegetables” this season.
The drought has displaced many Iraqis.
Tayseer, a 42-year-old farmer from the north of the country, told NRC he would likely have to abandon his land in Hawija due to the loss of income.
He earned 10 million Iraqi dinars (about $6,850) on the season, he said, but added that this year, he “probably wouldn’t even get 2 million. “