With increasing global warnings about the dangers of pollution in the air, soil and rivers, Iraq’s environment is witnessing pollution in all areas to the point that it has become a crisis that governmental and non-governmental attempts are unable to solve, and most awareness initiatives have not succeeded so far in directing society towards correct paths that enhance environmental protection. At a time when specialists warn that environmental risks in the country are threatening the lives of citizens.
Environmental activist Ahmed Saleh said, during an interview with Al Aalem Al Jadeed, that “Iraq has been suffering greatly from pollution rates for years, and on the other hand, the level of spreading awareness is very weak to introduce the dangers of pollution, which requires increasing its dissemination in light of the upbringing and education of new generations in the primary school stages and gradually upward, reaching the state departments as well.”
He added, “Environmental pollutants are mostly coming from the government industrial sector, hospitals, and municipalities, which are considered to contribute most to increasing pollution, especially through gaseous, carbon, and greenhouse gas emissions into the air and water, where toxic substances that are difficult to decompose are released.”
Saleh stresses, “Iraq must implement global environmental concepts and determinants and adhere to what calculates the environmental impact of every project that requires a plan to implement it.”
He points out that “Iraq, by not applying global environmental concepts, will face a danger in the coming years that will result in damage to the biological system of humans and animals with the increase in salt and toxic pollutants in the water, especially what happened, for example, in the Al-Bateera and Al-Kahla area in Maysan Governorate as a result of heavy water in the rivers that affected “Its quality is where toxic substances spread, causing many citizens to suffer from respiratory diseases, skin cancer, and the death of animals.”
The activist explains, “There is a specialized team that carefully scrutinizes these reports received from citizens before publishing them on the application, and then prepares detailed assessments that are sent directly to the relevant government departments,” noting that “reports that arrive reporting cases of pollution have reached 50 to 70 percent daily.”
While government awareness initiatives about pollution in its various forms are declining, community initiatives appear from time to time or by international organizations to launch guidance campaigns about this. Perhaps the most notable of these is what an environmental activist did during the year 2023, when he launched an electronic application to educate citizens and fight pollution by reporting the presence of Factors causing pollution in their areas, as reported by “The National” newspaper.
It is noteworthy that many specialists have warned of the accumulations that generated the pollution occurring in Iraq, which is related to the issue of water scarcity and desertification, which governments are able to convincingly put forward realistic solutions to address. In addition to this, there are military activities in the north and west, which have affected and are continuously affecting human health and the environment.
In this regard, Iqbal Latif, the academic specialized in the field of pollution and environment, said during an interview with “Al Aalem Al Jadeed” that “the percentage of river pollution in Iraq is 100 percent, while the soil is 90 percent, as the majority of districts and districts are not devoid of it, and these percentages have exceeded the limits that are permitted internationally.”
She explains, “These percentages represent the deterioration of the country’s ecosystem, which has prompted the migration of birds and animals due to the absence of biological diversity and the spread of cancerous diseases and birth defects. On the other hand, environmental awareness to confront pollution has not risen to the required level that parallels the growing danger. Rather, there is coexistence with pollution, cases of cancer patients, and the use of water that contains quantities of clay and many cases of poisoning and the spread of cholera.”
Latif warns that “awareness is supposed to be a governmental responsibility through institutions specialized in the environmental aspect and is based on the existence of a real danger in all components of the Iraqi environment, including water, air and soil. The fact that must be recognized is the presence of radioactive contamination as a result of the wars in recent years.”
Regarding possible solutions, the Academy confirms that “the possibility of treating wastewater that enters rivers and benefiting from it by watering trees after treating it must be done by the government by installing and maintaining specialized stations. There is also a complex problem with oil extraction operations through foreign companies that use large quantities in well water, where the hydrocarbons resulting from this process contribute to the spread of methane gas, which leads to global warming, which leads to a necessary need for the government to impose taxes on companies that do not adhere to environmental standards and safety requirements.”
Latif pointed out that “military activities in the northern and western regions through American military bases and large arsenals cause, throughout the year, infections of the rectum and colon diseases for soldiers first and citizens second. The situation also portends an increase in the chances of contracting pulmonary tuberculosis and cancers of the lymphatic and thyroid glands.”
She points out that “the decline in river levels and the lack of good amounts of rain led to the use of storage from dams, and this is a complex problem, while the government stands as a spectator to the crisis without agreements with Turkey and Iran, as Iraq is deprived of the amounts it deserves by building dams and restricting water to these two countries.”
She concludes her speech by saying, “The ongoing drought has caused famine due to high levels of salinity and desertification, which are complex problems that will increase as Iraq continues to not obtain its water rights, which portends a disaster. Although there are solutions among specialists and academics, no one takes them.”
At this time, when the desire of the Ministry of Environment is supposed to have been fulfilled to stop the violations taking place by health institutions and to stop throwing polluted materials into the rivers, according to what its spokesman expressed in previous statements during the current year, Al Aalem Al Jadeed tried to communicate with its spokesman for two continuous days. But no response from him.
For his part, crisis management specialist Ali Al-Fariji said, during an interview with Al Aalem Al Jadeed, that “Iraq is facing a catastrophe with the record high level of pollution, the most dangerous type of which is infrastructure pollution, as well as air pollution, which has become 11 times more polluted than it was in previous years.”
Al-Fariji adds, “The preventive measures are very random by all state institutions, and this negligence is what caused the failure to adopt a binding strategy for the performance of public and private institutions to confront this danger.”
He confirms that “the capital, Baghdad, and its sanitation projects for homes and factories, as well as the health institutions that were built after the year 2005, are currently designed and at their best to accommodate 2.5 million people, but according to the estimates of the Ministry of Planning, more than 8.5 million people currently live in Baghdad, as more than 6 million cubic meters per day of sewage network uses, two-thirds of this amount is thrown into rivers without treatment, as it exceeded 20 percent of the city’s basic design.”
The specialist in crisis management continues, “The efficiency of the projects is not at a level that can be trusted due to the spread of financial corruption and administrative confusion in all previous governments that managed the environmental file, and this type of neglect by state institutions created a social culture among society and individuals of violating the environment and committing environmental crimes that we pay the price for with high levels of pollution of all kinds.”
He points out “the clear increase in the appropriation of agricultural lands and their random conversion into residential or industrial areas, which has led to the almost complete disappearance of green areas, the scarcity of water, the absence of modern irrigation networks, and the decline of agriculture, in addition to oil companies that do not follow any standard. All of this has led to a deterioration in the environmental reality.”
While the Ministry of Environment talks about its need for new legal legislation to limit the growing pollution, it has identified three reasons for it, the first of which is related to the air and its damage from oil extraction operations in the southern governorates that lead to the emission of gases, which requires the Ministry of Oil to turn seriously to investing in associated gas to mitigate the damage in the environment.
The other reason is the increase in the number of cars and the lack of mass transportation, and the third reason is the failure of some laboratories and factories to comply with environmental determinants, according to what was previously stated by the Director General of the Technical Department of the Ministry of Environment, Issa Al-Fayad.
According to the latest global survey launched by the Swiss company IQAir, which specializes in manufacturing air purifiers, in 2023, Iraq ranked second as the most polluted country in the world, as air quality deteriorated to 80.1 micrograms of PM2.5 particles per cubic meter from 49.7 micrograms in 2021.
According to the survey, the capital, Baghdad, ranked 13th among the most polluted cities in the world, as air quality deteriorated to 86.7 micrograms of PM2.5 particles per cubic meter from 49.7 micrograms. The city of Erbil also recorded a pollution rate of 34 micrograms of PM2.5 particles per cubic meter, which is Thus, it promises an average rating of air quality in it.