A disappearing act: Iraq’s Lake Sawa is dying a slow death, thanks to climate change

As human activity and climate change bring about changes
in ecosystems, a lake in Iraq is slowly dying and disappearing. 

Sawa lake is now a barren wasteland with piles of salt. During its heydays in the 90s, the lake used to be popular with newly-weds and families who came to swim and picnic. 

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However, cut to around three decades later, the waterbody is almost completely dry.  Bottles litter its former banks and plastic bags dangle from sun-scorched shrubs. 

“This year, for the first time, the lake has disappeared,” environmental activist Husam Subhi told France 24 . “In previous years, the water area had decreased during the dry seasons.”

The five-square-kilometre (two-square-mile) lake has been drying up since 2014, said Youssef Jabbar, environmental department head of Muthana province. Climate change and rising temperatures are the reason behind it, he added. 

Authorities said that more than 1,000 wells were illegally dug in the area. And as if that were not enough, nearby cement and salt factories have “drained significant amounts of water from the groundwater that feeds the lake”, Jabbar said.

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The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, a global treaty, recognised the waterbody 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 waterbody was once “home to several globally vulnerable species” such as the eastern imperial eagle, houbara bustard and marbled duck.

Iraq is classified as one of five most vulnerable to climate change effects and desertification. 

Iraq relies on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for as much as 90% of its freshwater. But years of redcued rainfall in the region are forcing countries to compete for this ever-diminishing resource.    The country’s average annual temperatures are rising at nearly double the rate of Earth’s.

In the country’s south, the reduced river flows have caused saltwater currents from the Persian Gulf to intrude further upstream, tainting the freshwater of Iraq’s UNESCO protected marshlands. Experts pointed out that evaporation caused by extreme heat is aggravating the problem.