The Minister of Water Resources, Aoun Dhiab Abdullah, announced today, Thursday: ‘Iraq will lose more than 10 billion cubic meters of its water resources by the year 2035 as a result of the increased demand for water,’ stressing: ‘The federal government is working to reduce this.’

He said during his hosting of a seminar on the sidelines of the eighth Sulaymaniyah Forum: ‘There are climatic changes that are putting pressure on the water resource, and there is an increase in demand, while the availability is limited, in addition to the possibility of a decrease in the amount of water in the future as a result of these changes due to the increase in population and demand.’

He added: ‘We conducted a study under the name (the strategic study of lands and waters in Iraq) in the year 2015, and we updated it by contracting with an Italian company,’ indicating: ‘That study led to a somewhat painful fact that there is a shortage by the year 2035 of more than 10 billion cubic meters in water resources.

He explained:
“There is a large gap between supply and demand for water resources, and we are working to reduce this gap, not only by the Ministry of Water Resources, but also by the Iraqi government in general.”

Regarding the water problem with neighboring countries, the minister said: ‘No solutions have been found in order to activate the agreement to divide water between Iraq, Syria and Turkey, and we are working in this direction and we discussed this issue in several meetings.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency