BAGHDAD — Iraq could suffer a
20-percent drop in water resources by 2050 due to climate change, the World
Bank said Wednesday, warning of repercussions on growth and jobs.
اضافة اعلان
Water is a crucial issue for the oil-rich
country of 40 million that is facing an acute energy crisis, compounded by
increasingly severe droughts and low rainfall.
"Without action, water constraints will
lead to large losses across multiple sectors of the economy and come to affect
more and more vulnerable people," the World Bank's Saroj Kumar Jha
said in a statement accompanying a new report.
"By 2050, a temperature increase of one
degree Celsius, and a precipitation decrease of 10 percent would cause a 20
percent reduction of available freshwater" in Iraq, the report said.
"Under these circumstances, nearly
one-third of the irrigated land in Iraq will have no water by the year
2050."
Economic modelling showed that "real
GDP in Iraq could drop by up to 4 percent, or $6.6 billion compared to 2016
levels,” according to the report.
Demand for unskilled labor in the agricultural
sector could fall by 11.8 percent, and by 5.4 percent for non-agricultural
activities.
Water scarcity "is linked to
small-scale forced displacement in Iraq,” the World Bank warned, particularly
in the country's south.
In 2014, Iraq prepared a 20-year,
$180-billion plan to manage its water crisis.
But it was stillborn as Daesh seized a third
of the country the same year and money was diverted to fight the jihadists.
In 2018, financing for the water ministry
accounted for less than 0.2 percent of the country's overall budget, with just
$15 million.
"The current state of infrastructure
has led to salinity affecting approximately 60 percent of the cultivated land
and a 30–60 percent reduction in yield," the report said.
On a positive note, the World Bank said
Iraq's economic outlook had improved "on the back of the recovery of
global oil markets", adding its GDP was projected to grow from 2.6 percent
this year to more than six percent in 2022–2023.
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