Iraq’s Amerli reservoir dries up: Worst drought in a century

Shafaq News – Saladin

Amerli in Saladin, northern Iraq, is suffering its worst drought in over 100 years after the district’s only reservoir dried up, leaving dozens of villages without drinking water, a local official said on Friday.

Maytham Nouri, the district administrator, told Shafaq News that the Amerli lake had become “entirely empty for the first time in history,” warning of an imminent humanitarian and environmental disaster without urgent governmental support.

Farmers said the collapse of water supplies has wiped out plans to sow wheat and barley this winter, forcing residents to depend on artesian wells for household use. "The halt to farming and livestock could cause losses worth millions of dollars and fuel higher food prices."

Iraq is already ranked by the United Nations among the world’s five most climate-vulnerable countries. Years of record heat, poor rainfall, and declining river flows from neighboring states have cut water volumes by as much as 70%, drying farmland and accelerating desertification.

Read more: Iraq’s water crisis deepens: Reserves collapse, mismanagement continues.