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The Worst Natural Disasters of Drought and Rapid Desertification as Serious Challenges to the Future of Iraq in Various Aspects
2022-08-30
Prepared By: Ramadan Hamza, Expert in Water Strategy and Policy, Director of Water and Energy Strategy Institute
Introduction
Drought is a meteorological phenomenon inextricably linked to the climatic conditions of counties in arid and semi-arid regions, such as Iraq. Where deserts constitute the majority of the country, the probability of drought, one of the worst natural calamities, has catastrophic consequences. The degree, length, and magnitude of dehydration differ from region to region. Lack of rainfall dramatically impacts water supplies in arid and semi-arid regions. In other words, droughts have a more significant negative impact and can lead to crises in areas where water supplies are naturally limited. In most circumstances, atmospheric dryness causes later droughts, such as agricultural and hydrological droughts, and in long-term cases, economic and social droughts. The more severe and widespread the drought, the more profound its consequences. Drought, unlike floods, is a slow and steady environmental phenomenon that eventually becomes a natural disaster. Floods and earthquakes may cause massive damage to a community in an instant. However, drought damage is often more profound, more extensive, and less obvious to people and officials due to its long and gradual aspect. As a result, one of the most fundamental necessities in Iraq is drought monitoring and forecasting.
Consequently, forecasting drought is fraught with uncertainty because its beginning and ending dates are unknown, and the way it will occur and its impacts vary from area to area. The occurrence of dehydration may be divided into three stages. Initially, atmospheric drought occurs with a decrease in precipitation in an area or the catchment area, and the decrease in water within dam reservoirs is one of the first consequences. Then, if a continuous temperature rise accompanies this decrease in rainfall, evapotranspiration and the plant's need for water will increase, and as a result, an agricultural drought will occur, especially in the rainfed sector. If water consumption from underground sources continues for a long time, a water drought will occur, the adverse effects of which will be much deeper than that of an agricultural drought. At this point, the population is informed that a drought is occurring, which will have terrible impacts on the area, and that it will be difficult and expensive to mitigate its damages. Accordingly, the destruction of agricultural production, the suspension of economic activity, the relocation of drought losses, and the escalation of social issues and environmental dangers due to pollution are all results of this type of drought.
Types of Dehydration:
There are several forms of drought based on when they happen. The following is a brief overview of the chronological order in which these various forms arise.
1- Dry Weather
Meteorologists have defined drought as precipitation below average, resulting in a change in the climate pattern. Therefore, atmospheric drought mainly refers to the state of drought due to a lack of precipitation, and atmospheric drought is usually defined in terms of the degree of dryness (compared to average values) and the length of the dry season. Definitions of atmospheric drought must be considered on a case-by-case basis for each specific region, as the weather conditions that cause a lack of precipitation vary significantly from region to region. The definition of drought varies from a meteorological point of view in different countries and at different times.
2- Agricultural Drought
This type of water scarcity studies the effect of various characteristics of climatic or hydrological drought on agriculture, focusing on the lack of atmospheric precipitation, the difference between potential and actual evaporation, the deficit of soil water content (soil moisture), and the low level of groundwater or other water reservoirs, and so forth. An important issue in agriculture is the amount of water a plant needs, which depends on the common climatic conditions, the specific biological characteristics of each plant, the stage of plant growth and the physical and biological properties of the plant, and the type of soil. An adequate and comprehensive definition of agricultural drought should be able to analyze agricultural products' changing capacities and sensitivities during different periods of plant growth, from inception to maturity.
3- Hydrological Drought
Hydrology is the science that studies the circulation, distribution, and quality of surface and groundwater. Therefore, this part of drought is associated with the consequences of periods of precipitation on surface and groundwater resources, reservoirs of rivers, lakes, aquifers, and so forth. The watershed-scale generally determines the frequency and severity of hydrological droughts. Although all water shortages are caused in some way by a lack of precipitation, hydrologists pay special attention to how this deficiency plays a role in the hydrological system. Usually, these droughts are outside the climatic and agricultural water shortage period or delay in the time phase compared to them. The effects of low rainfall on various components of the hydrological system, such as soil moisture, waterways, groundwater levels, and other water reserves are not immediately visible because these results do not coincide with the effects of lack of rainfall on other economic sectors. For example, a lack of rainfall can lead to an immediate drop in soil humidity, which is naturally quickly recognized in the agricultural sector. However, the effect of this shortage period on the level of water reserves may not affect hydropower production for months. In addition, water in hydrological storage systems (reservoirs and rivers) generally competes for various uses, such as flood control, irrigation, hydropower, and the environment. This complicates the analysis and quantification of the consequences of drought.
4- Socio-economic Drought
The definition of drought or water scarcity from a socio-economic perspective deal with the relationship between supply and demand for some economic goods and drought's climatic, hydrological, and agricultural elements. This type of drought differs from meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural droughts in that its occurrence is directly dependent on temporal and spatial supply and demand processes and is indirectly related to a lack of precipitation. The other three types of droughts are directly related to lack of precipitation. The provision of many economic goods, such as water, fodder, grain and hydropower, depends on the state of the climate. Because of natural climate change, water is abundant in some years but unable to meet human and environmental needs in other years. Social and economic water scarcity occurs when the need for water exceeds its supply, eventually leading to a deficiency of water resources. This type of drought can indirectly affect climate change, but many human factors, especially water management, play an essential role in its occurrence. Socio-economic drought is primarily the product of unscientific design, planning, and irresponsible management of water resources rather than water scarcity due to condensed rainfall.
Effects of Dehydration
In general, any natural disaster that leads to people's death or puts their lives and capital at risk is a natural disaster. Among all other natural disasters, droughts have a significant economic and psychological impact and affect many people. Drought has a wide range of economic, environmental, and social impacts. Therefore, addressing coping methods and strategies used during drought is very important and is one of the significant challenges at present. Due to the high dependence of agricultural activities on the water, the occurrence of drought and inappropriate behavior to deal with it, many negative social, economic and environmental impacts such as reduced quality of life and decreased health, increased water costs, reduced food production, reduced surface and groundwater, soil erosion, and reduced plant diversity, and so forth, which in turn increases poverty among the villagers and farmers, whereas, 90% of the Middle East is dry and rainfall level is low.
Dehydration A Natural and Human Challenge
Drought is a process caused by climate change and fluctuations in precipitation and has always played an essential role in its occurrence. According to the definition, the lack of precipitation is expected within a hydrological year compared to the average precipitation in a region of the so-called "Drought", which can be seen in any type of climate, from a dry to a humid tropical climate. While the increase in the average precipitation causes a wet year, and the lack of precipitation is less than the required average for one year compared to the previous causes is the drought condition. These fluctuations affect the lives of humans and other animals and take on wider dimensions when they have economic and social dimensions.
Solutions
The first step in planning for drought is to develop a drought map, which involves identifying the features of prior drought episodes, investigating the drought form over the last decades, and determining the temporal and geographical variations in drought intensity, duration, and extent. Management solutions in drought conditions and flood control in various sectors, especially the uses of water in agriculture, can assist managers and local officials through the preparation of a map of the probability of drought severity, the study of meteorological factors that affect the severity and duration of droughts, the relationship between droughts and climate change, and the prediction of the course of drought events. Accordingly, drought occurrences are analyzed for their intensity, length, and extent, and then maps depicting these metrics and their respective ranges are created. This assists in determining the drought trend in Iraq, assessing it in light of the most appropriate statistical distribution model, and calculating the probability of various densities and their subsequent recurrence intervals. To secure food production in light of climate and political changes in Iraq, these data influence agriculture and sustainable development strategies.
