Title: Climate change and its implications on Iraq: A review

Biography:

Nadhir Al-Ansari has completed his PhD at the age of 29 years from Dundee University. He is Professor at the department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering at Lulea Technical University, Sweden. He has published more than 380 papers in reputed journals and 13 books. He has been serving as an editorial board member of 6 International journals. He has been awarded several scientific and educational awards; among them the British Council on its 70th Anniversary awarded him as top 5 scientists in Cultural Relations. He is the Member of several scientific societies. He has supervised more than 60 postgraduate students at different Universities.

Abstract

Global Climate Change has become a hot topic nowadays for the media, politicians and world organizations which have conflicting views on its extent and what to do to avoid its impacts. This paper attempts to check how real this change is and the historical evidence of its occurrence and describes its causes and what does this mean for Iraq. Iraq is located in one of the most vulnerable regions of the world and it has felt these effects in the forms of recurrent droughts, disturbed pattern of precipitation in the form of its quantity, intensity and timing, increased desertification and sand storms. This is also manifested by the diminishing of the water resources of both The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers whose catchment areas suffer the same impacts. The paper discusses also some of the performed modelling studies carried out so far to predict the future of these two rivers. The expected sea level rise is also explored and the future effects on Iraq’s Gulf shore line, its navel and land installations there and impacts on the deltaic region of southern Iraq explained. Other consequences of future climate change impacts are outlined in terms of water scarcity, farmland deterioration and migration of people with expected grave problems on the social peace. Some recommendations to mitigate and alleviate the situation are given.