SAWA LAKE, Iraq — A “No Fishing” sign on the edge of
Iraq’s western desert is one of
the few clues that this was once Sawa Lake, a biodiverse wetland and
recreational landmark.
اضافة اعلان
Human activity and
climate change have combined to turn the site into a barren wasteland with
piles of salt.
Abandoned hotels
and tourist facilities here hark back to the 1990s when the salt lake, circled
by sandy banks, was in its heyday and popular with newly-weds and families who
came to swim and picnic.
But today, the
lake near the city of Samawa, south of the capital Baghdad, is completely dry.
Bottles litter
its former banks and plastic bags dangle from sun-scorched shrubs, while two
pontoons have been reduced to rust.
“This year, for
the first time, the lake has disappeared,” environmental activist Husam Subhi
said. “In previous years, the water area had decreased during the dry seasons.”
Today, on the
sandy ground sprinkled with salt, only a pond remains where tiny fish swim, in
a source that connects the lake to an underground water table.
The 5sq.m. lake
has been drying up since 2014, says Youssef Jabbar, environmental department
head of Muthana province.
The causes have
been “climate change and rising temperatures,” he explained.
“Muthana is a
desert province, it suffers from drought and lack of rainfall.”
1,000 illegal wells
A government statement issued last week also pointed to “more than
1,000 wells illegally dug” for agriculture in the area.
Additionally, nearby
cement and salt factories have “drained significant amounts of water from the
groundwater that feeds the lake”, Jabbar said.
It would take
nothing short of a miracle to bring Sawa Lake back to life.
Use of aquifers
would have to be curbed and, following three years of drought, the area would
now need several seasons of abundant rainfall, in a country hit by
desertification and regarded as one of the five most vulnerable to climate
change.
The
Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, a global treaty, recognised Sawa as “unique ... because
it is a closed water body in an area of sabkha (salt flat) with no inlet or
outlet.
“The lake is
formed over limestone rock and is isolated by gypsum barriers surrounding the
lake; its water chemistry is unique,” says the convention’s website.
A stopover for
migratory birds, the lake was once “home to several globally vulnerable
species” such as the eastern imperial eagle, houbara bustard and marbled duck.
‘Lake died before me’
Sawa is not the only body of water in Iraq facing the perils of
drought.
Iraqi social
media is often filled with photos of grotesquely cracked soil, such as in the
UNESCO-listed Howeiza marshes in the south, or Razzaza Lake in the central
province of Karbala.
In Sawa, a sharp
drop in rainfall — now only 30 percent of what used to be normal for the region
— has lowered the underground water table, itself drained by wells, said Aoun
Dhiab, a senior advisor at Iraq’s water resources ministry.
And rising
temperatures have increased evaporation.
Dhiab said authorities
have banned the digging of new wells and are working to close illegally-dug
wells across the country.
Latif Dibes, who
divides his time between his hometown of Samawa and his adopted country of
Sweden, has worked for the past decade to raise environmental awareness.
The former
driving school instructor cleans up the banks of the Euphrates River and has
turned the vast, lush garden of his home into a public park.
He remembers the
school trips and holidays of his childhood, when the family would go swimming
at Sawa.
“If the
authorities had taken an interest, the lake would not have disappeared at this
rate. It’s unbelievable,” he said.
“I am 60 years
old and I grew up with the lake. I thought I would disappear before it, but
unfortunately, it has died before me.”
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