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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, are becoming increasingly polluted with domestic, industrial, and agricultural waste, threatening the country’s key lifeline waterways that are a source of livelihood for up to ten million Iraqis.
On one hand, soggy trash, water bottles, aluminium cans, and muddy styrofoam boxes have clogged the banks of the two rivers, while on the other, the discharge of household and industrial sewage flows into the river.
To make matters worse, as the picnicking season in the country has returned, so has the littering.
To save the two rivers, the Iraqi Ministry of Environment has decided to take some practical steps to address this issue with well-thought-out plans and advanced standards.
"A committee has been formed and headed by the Prime Minister [Mohammed Shia al-Sudani] which includes all sectoral bodies, and a realistic, applicable plan has been developed for the short, medium, and long term," said Jassim al-Falahi, the technical undersecretary of the minister of environment.
"The short term for one year, two years for the medium and five years for the long term, to reach an important goal, which is to stop any pollution of water sources,” he added.
In Baghdad, 18 sewage stations dump untreated heavy water into the river at a rate of 700,000 cubic meters per day, according to the Iraqi water resources ministry, adding that they are unable to find solutions to reduce health risks in the river.
"Previously, the ministry was taking effective measures when noticing high concentrations of pollutants in rivers, through additional releases from strategic reservoirs, natural lakes, and storage lakes linked to dams, but now it is difficult and impossible for us to sacrifice drinking water and domestic uses to mitigate the harm of pollutants," Khaled al-Shamali, official spokesman for the Ministry of Water Resources said.
Sanitation projects in Baghdad are designed to accommodate only three million people, but now the population has reached about 10 million people around the two rivers, according to the Ministry of Planning, and this increases the flow of pollutants even more with the decrease in the water level in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
The UN classifies Iraq as the fifth most vulnerable country in the world to the effects of climate change. Droughts are more frequent and longer. Water reserves have decreased by half since last year due to a combination of drought, lack of rainfall, and declining river levels, according to the water ministry.
On one hand, soggy trash, water bottles, aluminium cans, and muddy styrofoam boxes have clogged the banks of the two rivers, while on the other, the discharge of household and industrial sewage flows into the river.
To make matters worse, as the picnicking season in the country has returned, so has the littering.
To save the two rivers, the Iraqi Ministry of Environment has decided to take some practical steps to address this issue with well-thought-out plans and advanced standards.
"A committee has been formed and headed by the Prime Minister [Mohammed Shia al-Sudani] which includes all sectoral bodies, and a realistic, applicable plan has been developed for the short, medium, and long term," said Jassim al-Falahi, the technical undersecretary of the minister of environment.
"The short term for one year, two years for the medium and five years for the long term, to reach an important goal, which is to stop any pollution of water sources,” he added.
In Baghdad, 18 sewage stations dump untreated heavy water into the river at a rate of 700,000 cubic meters per day, according to the Iraqi water resources ministry, adding that they are unable to find solutions to reduce health risks in the river.
"Previously, the ministry was taking effective measures when noticing high concentrations of pollutants in rivers, through additional releases from strategic reservoirs, natural lakes, and storage lakes linked to dams, but now it is difficult and impossible for us to sacrifice drinking water and domestic uses to mitigate the harm of pollutants," Khaled al-Shamali, official spokesman for the Ministry of Water Resources said.
Sanitation projects in Baghdad are designed to accommodate only three million people, but now the population has reached about 10 million people around the two rivers, according to the Ministry of Planning, and this increases the flow of pollutants even more with the decrease in the water level in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
The UN classifies Iraq as the fifth most vulnerable country in the world to the effects of climate change. Droughts are more frequent and longer. Water reserves have decreased by half since last year due to a combination of drought, lack of rainfall, and declining river levels, according to the water ministry.
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