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Human And Environmental Factors Of Iraq's Water Poverty In Iraq

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Iraq’s Water Poverty

According to E. Feitelson and J. Chenoweth, “Water poverty is a situation where a nation or region cannot afford the cost of sustainable clean water to all people at all times.” Iraq is a war-torn country that’s having many internal problems. Until recently, Iraq has been badly struck by water poverty. In fact, this “war of water” has been making Iraqi officials worried that, “it may do what decades of war have not been able to - destroy the country.” (Nizar Latif and Phil Sands) There are numerous human and environmental factors that affect Iraq’s water and water quality. For environmental factors, Iraq is “currently going through its worse drought in decades.” (UNESCO office for Iraq). There has been “poor rainfall and higher temperatures than before.” (Nizar Latif and Phil Sands). For human factors, the two main rivers that keep Iraq alive, the Tigris and the Euphrates, have been having reduced water flows. Recently, Turkey have been “battling its own water crisis,” (Joost Jongerden) The same is also true for Syria as it’s also drawing in water from the Tigris and the Euphrates (John Vidal). With Turkey and Syria at the upstream of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and Iraq at the downstream, Iraq is unable to match up with the efforts of Turkey’s and Syria’s and can’t do much since it’s weaker. Iraq’s international water committee have been trying to come up with a solution with Turkey and Syria to share water resources equally (Nizar Latif and Phil
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