Iraq | Human activity and climate change have killed Lake Sawa

(Lake of Sawa) “Fishing prohibited”: at the gates of the Iraqi desert, nothing testifies to the existence of Lake Sawa, except for this sign overlooking the now arid lands. Man’s hand and climate change have dried up the salt water body.

The ruins of the hotel and tourist infrastructure are a reminder that, even in the 1990s, the lake and its shores were very popular with newlyweds and families who came to swim and picnic there.

But today, Sawa, in southern Iraq, is completely dry. Bottles litter its ancient banks and plastic bags hang from sun-scorched shrubs. Two iron pontoons are delivered to rust.

“This year, for the first time, the lake has disappeared,” said environmental activist Husam Subhi. “In previous years, the surface area of ​​water decreased during the dry seasons.”

On the sandy land sprinkled with white salt, only a pond remains where tiny fish swim. It is the source that connects the lake to the water table supplying it.

The drying up of the 5 km lake² has been observed since 2014, says Youssef Jabbar, director of the environmental department of Muthana province.

In question: “climate change and rising temperatures. Muthana is a desert province, it suffers from drought and lack of rainfall,” the official explains.

But above all, there are “more than a thousand illegally dug wells” not far away for agriculture, according to a government press release published on Friday.

Just as nearby cement and salt factories “drained significant amounts of water from the groundwater that feeds the lake,” says Jabbar.

“Vulnerable species”

To live again, Sawa expects no less than a miracle.

We should condemn the wells and, after three years marked by drought, hope for several seasons of heavy rains in Iraq, one of the five countries in the world most affected by climate change and hit hard by desertification.

However, even so “it will be difficult to return the lake to its original state”, admits Youssef Jabbar.

Since 2014, the area has been protected by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and fishing is prohibited.

On its website, the organization emphasizes the “unique” character of the lake, located in “an area of ​​sabkhas (salt pans, editor’s note)”. “The lake is formed on silty rocks and isolated by the gypsum barriers that surround it”, is it specified in the text.

Positioned on the route of migratory birds, it was once home to “several globally vulnerable species, the imperial eagle, the houbara bustard and the marbled teal”.

Sawa is not the only body of water facing the throes of drought in Iraq.

Regularly, social networks are flooded with photos of dry areas with cracked soil, such as in the Mesopotamian marshes listed in UNESCO, in Howeiza (south) or Lake Razaza, in Kerbala (center).

“The lake is dead”

In Sawa, “the abrupt drop in rainfall” – which is now only 30% of what it once was in the region – means that the water table is no longer replenished, while being constantly drained by wells, explains Aoun Dhiab, Senior Advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources.

And the rise in temperatures has accentuated the phenomenon of evaporation, he adds.

However, he points to the authorities’ recent decision to ban the digging of new wells and ongoing efforts to condemn illegal wells across the country.

Latif Dibes lives between his hometown of Samawa, near the lake, and his adopted country, Sweden.

This former driving instructor has been mobilized for ten years to raise Samawa’s awareness of ecology. He cleans the banks of the Euphrates and has transformed the vast, luxuriant garden of his house into a public park.

“If the authorities had taken an interest in this file, the lake would not have disappeared at this speed. It’s unbelievable,” he laments, recalling school outings and holidays from his childhood, when the family went swimming at the lake.

“I am 60 years old and I grew up with the lake. I thought I would disappear before him, but unfortunately he died before me”.