{"page":"\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/resources-572d6a42.css\" /\u003e\n\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/lp_boclips_stylesheets-f4d0de30.css\" media=\"all\" /\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-title='Feature on Iraq\u0026#39;s battle with drought for second year' data-url='/boclips/videos/5c54bd3ed8eafeecae132b20' data-video-url='/boclips/videos/5c54bd3ed8eafeecae132b20' id='bo_player_modal'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='boclips-resource-page modal-dialog panel-container'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='react-notifications-root'\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-header'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-type'\u003e\n\u003ci aria-hidden='true' class='fai fa-regular fa-circle-play'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\nVideo\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch1 class='rp-title' id='video-title'\u003e\nFeature on Iraq\u0026#39;s battle with drought for second year\n\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-actions'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='mr-1'\u003e\n\u003ca class=\"btn btn-success\" data-posthog-event=\"Signup: LP Signup Activity\" data-posthog-location=\"body_link_boclips\" data-remote=\"true\" href=\"/subscription/new\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGet Free Access\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"\"\u003e for 10 Days\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-body'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-info'\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-label='Hide resource details' class='rp-hide-info' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u0026times;\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Expand resource details' class='rp-expand-info fai fa-solid fa-up-right-and-down-left-from-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Compress resource details' class='rp-compress-info fai fa-solid fa-down-left-and-up-right-to-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-rating'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='resource-pool'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-label'\u003ePublisher:\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-name'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='text'\u003e\u003ca data-publisher-id=\"30356011\" href=\"/search?publisher_ids%5B%5D=30356011\"\u003eCurated Video\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-description'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='short-description'\u003e1. Wide of dry land with palm trees in the background 2. Pan of dry ground and cracked earth3. Palm trees 4. Various of dry and dead palm tree 5. Farmer Ashur Mohamed Ahmood walking on parched land 6. Ahmood walking with stick, UPSOUND:...\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='full-description hide'\u003e1. Wide of dry land with palm trees in the background \u003cbr/\u003e2. Pan of dry ground and cracked earth\u003cbr/\u003e3. Palm trees \u003cbr/\u003e4. Various of dry and dead palm tree \u003cbr/\u003e5. Farmer Ashur Mohamed Ahmood walking on parched land \u003cbr/\u003e6. Ahmood walking with stick, UPSOUND: (Arabic) Ashur Mohamed Ahmood: \"There is no water, there is no water\" \u003cbr/\u003e7. Low angle shot of Ahmood walking over the cracks of dry land and uprooting weed  \u003cbr/\u003e8. Various of Ahmood and his wife walking on dry land \u003cbr/\u003e9. Ashur picking a piece of dried earth and throwing it back down, UPSOUND: (Arabic) Ashur Mohamed Ahmood: \"Look at this land!\" \u003cbr/\u003e10. SOUNDBITE: (Arabic) Ashur Mohamed Ahmood, Farmer from Lattifiya: \u003cbr/\u003e\"There is no water, our rivers dried. We want Allah and you to help us, we want the government to help us. They say that Turkey closed the water on us, help us so God will help you too.\" \u003cbr/\u003e11. Wide of Ahmood, his wife and children standing on dry land \u003cbr/\u003e12. Ahmood's children walking barefoot on dry land \u003cbr/\u003e13. Wide of dry artificial tributary \u003cbr/\u003e14. Mid of artificial tributary \u003cbr/\u003e15. Various of concrete ducts in the artificial tributary \u003cbr/\u003e16. Close-up of dried earth \u003cbr/\u003e17. SOUNDBITE: (Arabic) Adeelah Fingdan, Ahmood's wife: \u003cbr/\u003e\"We want Allah and you to find us a solution. We want water, we cannot grow plants because there is no water, for two years there has been no planting.\" \u003cbr/\u003e18. Wide of clay house on the farm \u003cbr/\u003e19. Mid of young girl and boy standing in front of clay house \u003cbr/\u003e20. Pick truck driving on unpaved roadway in village \u003cbr/\u003eBelow-average rainfall and insufficient water in the Euphrates and Tigris rivers have left Iraq bone dry for a second straight year, wrecking swaths of farm land, threatening drinking water supplies and intensifying fierce sandstorms that have coated the country in brown dust.\u003cbr/\u003eThe drought has dealt a harsh blow to hopes that reductions in sectarian violence over the last year would fuel an economic recovery. \u003cbr/\u003eInstead, the government's budget suffered a double-hit: Lower than expected oil prices have crimped revenues and the scarcity of water will force Iraq to spend money to import most of the crops, especially wheat and rice, to meet domestic demand.\u003cbr/\u003e\"There is no water, our rivers dried,\" said Ashur Mohamed Ahmood, slipping the tip of his black cane into deep cracks in his parched field. \u003cbr/\u003eHe cautioned children not to run, fearing their small bare feet would get stuck in the crevices crisscrossing the farm on the outskirts of Baghdad.\u003cbr/\u003e\"Look at this land,\" he says, uprooting a weed and throwing it back to the ground.\u003cbr/\u003eHistorically, Iraq has been one of the more fertile nations in the region, thanks to the Tigris and Euphrates, which flow southeasterly through the entire nation. \u003cbr/\u003eBut for a second year, cropland in the north and west is parched and farmers in south and central Iraq are suffering from low water flows in both rivers - a phenomenon caused in part by the construction of dams built in neighbouring Turkey and Syria.\u003cbr/\u003e\"They say that Turkey closed the water on us,\" Ahmood said, reflecting the common belief among Iraqis that their country's neighbours are responsible for their plight. \"Help us so God will help you too.\"\u003cbr/\u003eAs farmers complain of their ruined crops, the drought can be felt across the nation as gritty sandstorms lash Iraqis with increased frequency this summer. Last week's storm left tree leaves and vehicles coated with what looks like tan talcum powder.\u003cbr/\u003eA decline in acreage where plant roots once knitted the soil has only increased the severity of sandstorms, which are blowing across Iraq with increased frequency - nearly 20 so far this year. \u003cbr/\u003eTwo people died in the eastern city of Kut, and hundreds of Iraqis complaining of respiratory problems crowded emergency rooms across Iraq during the most recent three-day sandstorm, which many said was the worst in memory.\u003cbr/\u003eThe storms often ground commercial flights. They scuttled US Vice President Joe Biden's scheduled trip earlier this month from Baghdad to the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, where much of the country's wheat is grown.\u003cbr/\u003eAdding to the farmers' difficulties, the dwindling water supplies are suffering from high amounts of salt. \u003cbr/\u003eMahdi al-Qaisi, Iraq's undersecretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, has warned that without the modernisation of irrigation systems and enough water to drain areas with high levels of salinity, the impact of the drought would last for years.\u003cbr/\u003eDesertification, especially in mid and southern Iraq, has been accelerated by people cutting down trees for firewood, underinvestment and the pounding the land has taken from military vehicles and operations, he said.\u003cbr/\u003eThe severity of the drought has resulted in a testy water dispute between Iraq and Turkey, which has built five dams along the Euphrates upstream from where it enters western Iraq. The quarrel recently cooled when Turkey agreed to release more water from its dams.\u003cbr/\u003eAoun Thiab Abdullah, director of the Iraqi Water Resources Ministry's national water resources centre, said Iraq needs at least 500 cubic meters of water a second to flow from the Euphrates - nearly twice the current level - so that it can meet its needs in the south, especially in the areas\u003cbr/\u003ewhere rice is grown.\u003cbr/\u003eThis year's grain harvest was forecast to be among the worst in a decade - virtually unchanged from last year and down about 45 percent from a normal year's harvest, according to Michael Shean at the US Agriculture Department's foreign agriculture service. \u003cbr/\u003eRice won't be harvested until October, but water shortages earlier this year prompted Iraq to cut its rice crop in half in central and southern provinces.\u003cbr/\u003eAdeelah Fingdan, Ahmood's wife, complained she has been unable to grow plants for two years.\u003cbr/\u003eUS State Department reconstruction teams in Anbar, an arid province in western Iraq, are helping Iraqis to continue drawing water from depleted lakes and ensure that water treatment plants can adequately treat the supply of drinking water.\u003cbr/\u003eThey say some lakes in Anbar Province are 9 to 12 yards (30 to 40 feet) lower this year compared with last year.\u003cbr/\u003eThe water is so low that water intake pipes are exposed and cannot suck the water up into treatment plants.\u003cbr/\u003eWhat water can be drawn is heavy with sediment. That coupled with increased salinity, sewage waste dumped into the Euphrates and agricultural runoff is making it increasingly difficult for water treatment plants to cleanse the supply of drinking water.\u003cbr/\u003eAs if ongoing bombings and drought weren't enough, Hassan al-Asadi, a member of the Dhi Qar provincial council in southern Iraq, said that a few months ago, water snakes that had lost their natural habitat along the rivers started to show up around houses near al-Chibaiysh marshland.\u003cbr/\u003eDozens of people were bitten, al-Asadi said, adding that for a time, Iraqi soldiers and policemen were shooting about 70 wayward snakes a day.\u003cbr/\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='action-container flex justify-between'\u003e\n\u003cbutton aria-expanded='false' aria-label='Read more description' class='rp-full-description' type='button'\u003e\n\u003ci class='fai fa-solid fa-align-left'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cspan id='read_more'\u003eRead 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