In Iraq’s famed marshlands, climate change is upending a way of life

Enlarge this image

Unprecedented heatwaves and low rainfall are turning southern Iraq’s marshlands into a place hostile to the communities who’ve lived there for generations — as well as their livestock.

Mootaz Sami for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Mootaz Sami for NPR

Enlarge this image

Families in Iraq’s southern marshlands are battling drought and extreme heat in order to save the animals they herd.

Mootaz Sami for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Mootaz Sami for NPR

Majid Hameed raises buffalo in Iraq’s southern marshland. As water levels in the area dropped, herders have struggled to find enough drinkable water for their animals.

Mootaz Sami for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Mootaz Sami for NPR

This year, extreme heatwaves and low rainfall are turning parts of these fragile wetlands into a place so hostile that the communities who’ve lived here for generations are finding it impossible to remain. The entire marshlands area, which once covered up to 7,000-plus square miles, has shrunk significantly over time.

Parts still seem idyllic. During a visit in October, in the gentle dawn light, it was easy to see why some scholars believe these waterways were the original inspiration for the biblical Garden of Eden. Herons dive for fish in the dark waters, and sunrise meets a cacophony of birdsong. Warblers and black and white kingfishers dart among the green reeds.

Those reeds form the canopies of simple shelters where families sleep and live alongside their animals on small islands. They rise at first light and set about milking their water buffaloes. Then they load containers of the frothy liquid into rickety wooden boats, and speed to the nearby town of Chibaish to sell the fresh milk at the market.

Enlarge this image

Drought and extreme temperatures that scientists link to climate change are changing the habitat and a way of life in Iraq’s marshes.

Mootaz Sami for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Mootaz Sami for NPR

Enlarge this image

Water buffalo herds cool themselves in the marsh waters during the day before returning to land to feed and sleep each evening.

Mootaz Sami for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Mootaz Sami for NPR

Farmers stand beside a home-dug well in Diyala, Iraq. A prolonged drought has dried up lakes and brought rivers to such low levels that a government spokesperson says the country can cultivate only about half the land it normally would.

Mootaz Sami for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Mootaz Sami for NPR

Iraq relies on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for as much as 90% of its freshwater. But years of reduced rainfall in the region are forcing countries to compete for this ever-diminishing resource. In recent years, damming projects in Turkey and Iran have reduced the levels of water reaching Iraq downstream.

Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources says river water flows into Iraq have dropped by more than a third from the 1970s to today. Meanwhile, the country’s average annual temperatures are increasing at nearly double the rate of Earth’s.

Iraq’s average annual temperatures are increasing at nearly double the rate of Earth’s. In Diyala province in mid-October, the temperature reached almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mootaz Sami for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Mootaz Sami for NPR

A study by the United Nations Environment Programme found that Iraq is the fifth-most vulnerable country in the world to decreased water and food availability, extreme temperatures and associated health problems.

United Nations experts say Iraq is losing some 155 miles of arable land every year to desertification and soil erosion. Hameed al-Nayef, a spokesperson for Iraq’s agriculture ministry, tells NPR that drought conditions this year are so bad that the country can produce on only about half the land it normally would.

In Iraq’s south, the reduced river flows have caused saltwater currents from the Persian Gulf to intrude further upstream, tainting the freshwater of Iraq’s UNESCO-protected marshlands. Experts say evaporation caused by extreme heat compounds the problem.

Enlarge this image

A boy paddles a boat in the marshes. Reduced river flows have caused saltwater currents from the Persian Gulf to intrude further upstream, tainting the freshwater of Iraq’s protected marshlands.

Mootaz Sami for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Mootaz Sami for NPR

Enlarge this image

As water levels dropped in the marshlands this summer, the marsh water became too salty for the water buffalo to drink.

Mootaz Sami for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Mootaz Sami for NPR

U.N. experts say Iraq is losing some 155 miles of arable land every year to desertification and soil erosion.

Mootaz Sami for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Mootaz Sami for NPR

Others are trying to move to other parts of the marshlands that haven’t dried out. But they say it’s increasingly difficult to find good places to settle with space for their buffalo, and herders are becoming more concentrated in the shrinking marsh areas.

In a country where years of war have already uprooted many lives, displacement for reasons of climate and environment is now becoming a common reality. In July 2019, the International Organization for Migration reported having identified 21,314 internally displaced people from Iraq’s southern and central governorates — where the marshlands are located — due to the lack of access to clean water.

Many migrate to Iraqi cities, placing additional pressure on urban areas that already suffer from poor municipal services and infrastructure.

Those who’ve left are forced to adapt to life outside the marshes

In the impoverished city of Nasiriyah, about 60 miles from his original home in the marshlands, Hameed Hassab Ali is working as a taxi driver to try to support his nine children.

As the temperatures in the marshlands soared and rainfall lessened year after year, the changing climate became «a central topic of discussion in our family or tribal meetings,» says Ali. «When we’d discuss our hardships with local officials from the government, they’d tell us they had no solutions as this is a problem that comes from beyond just Iraq’s borders.»

As a fisherman in the marshlands, Ali struggled with dwindling stock. After his father died in 2017, he received a share of the sale of his dad’s home and saw his opportunity to leave.

Hameed Hassab Ali, a former fisherman in the marshlands, now works as a taxi driver in the city of Nasiriyah.

Mootaz Sami for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Mootaz Sami for NPR

Now he lives in a sparsely furnished home in a slum neighborhood. «As you can see, this is a poor neighborhood, without even paved street. But what can I do? This is what I can afford.»

Every month Ali pays back part of the loan he took out to buy the taxi he drives. Earnings are very tight, but at least in the city he has a home with electricity and a fan with which he can help his family stay cooler.

Sometimes he yearns for the life he left behind: «I miss my community, and the tribal meeting where we’d gather to drink coffee and talk. I miss the abundance of fish and of birds. I’m always keen to return back to that life in these good times.»

In the marshlands, «When we’d discuss our hardships with local officials from the government, they’d tell us they had no solutions as this is a problem that comes from beyond just Iraq’s borders,» says Hameed Hassab Ali. He misses his old life, but knows there’s no going back.

Mootaz Sami for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Mootaz Sami for NPR

But he knows that even if he were to return to the marshlands, those good times are gone.

• cop26
• wetlands
• extreme heat
• drought
• climate change
• Iraq