Water resources ministry: future plans for extracting and desalinating water from alluvial plain

Baghdad-INA

The Ministry of Water Resources announced Saturday the preparation of a water management plan in the dry season, while indicating that it has drawn up future plans to extract and desalinate water alluvial plain .
 
Hatem Hamid al-Tamimi, director general of the National Center for Water Resources Management, told The Iraqi News Agency (INA): "The climate changes that have taken place in the world over the last 10 years have led to disasters and significant climate extremism in some areas, Iraq is among the most vulnerable areas in climate change towards drought."
 
"The ministry prepared a strategic plan for water and land resources in Iraq in 2014, which is in the content of which is to develop a drought management plan to divide the water treasury in light of the treasury achieved in the reservoirs in addition to meeting the environmental needs of Basra province and the south," he said.
 
"Drinking water is not lacking, but there is a shortage of agricultural water, which accounts for 85% of Iraq's water consumption, in addition to the marshes that make up 10% of Iraq's water consumption," he said.
 
"The groundwater in the alluvial plain is known to be undrinkable and unfit for agriculture, but the groundwater in Diyala provinces, north of Baghdad, Salah al-Din, the Northern provinces, Anbar and the western deserts of Samawah, Najaf and Karbala has good quality water, and we can invest it for agriculture," he said.
“Alluvial plain water is unfit for agriculture, and needs to be extracted and then desalinated," he said.
 
"The expectations for next season, whether American, European or even Iraqi weather forecasts, indicate that it is a dry season, so a plan for the management of water resources was prepared during the next winter and summer season based on this basis," he said.