Iraq’s Razzaza Lake was formerly a popular tourist destination due to its stunning beauty and an abundance of fish on which the people relied. Now, its shores are littered with dead fish, and the once-fertile areas surrounding it have devolved into a bleak desert. The man-made Razzaza Lake, one of Iraq’s largest, is experiencing a substantial fall in water levels due to pollution and excessive saline levels.
“During the 1980s and 1990s, the Razzaza Lake provided a livelihood; it was home to fish such as yellowfin barbel, binni, and carp due to the lake’s high water level,” explains fisherman Saleh Abboud. “However, it has since dried up.”
Razzaza Lake is the newest victim of the water crisis
Razzaza Lake is the newest victim of Iraq’s ongoing water crisis, dubbed the “Land Between the Two Rivers” due to its location between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Dams built upstream in Turkey, Syria, and Iran have reduced the size of rivers and their tributaries, seasonal rainfall has decreased, and infrastructure has deteriorated.
Hundreds of families made their living fishing the Razzaza. Now, the quantity of dead fish discovered exceeds the number of living fish that can be caught.
Razzaza Lake, sometimes known as Lake Milh, Arabic for Salt Lake, is located in Iraq’s Anbar and Karbala governorates. It is Iraq’s second-largest lake and is located within a broad valley that also contains the lakes of Habbaniyah, Tharthar, and Bahr al-Najaf. The lake was built to help regulate floods in the Euphrates and to serve as a massive irrigation reservoir. Iraqis and foreigners alike frequented the lake as a place to cool off during Iraq’s scorching summers.
Not anymore, as the lake continues to shrink each year. It has been impacted in recent years not only by water scarcity, but also by drought, negligence, and increasing evaporation during Iraq’s scorching summers. It has also been impacted by contamination as a result of sewage water being diverted into the lake and water quotas being stolen from it.
“The lake cannot be used to operate water resources since we do not have enough water to replenish the Razzaza Lake,” Aoun Diab Abdullah, an adviser at the Ministry of Water Resources, explained.