Quality of Surface Water and Groundwater in Iraq
Authors: Al-Ansari Nadhir , Saleh Sabbar , Abdullahand Twana , Ali Abed Salwan 
Published: November 2020

Insufficiency of water resources in the Middle East Region represents vital factors
that influence the stability of the region and its progress. Expectations indicate that
the condition will be dimmer and more complicated, especially in Iraqi territory.
Iraq, which is situated in the Middle East, it covers an area of 433,970 square
kilometers and populated by about 32 million inhabitants. Iraq greatly relies in its
water resources on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as a surface water resources,
and several productive groundwater aquifers in which from the hydrogeological
point of view divided into several major aquifer units including Foothill, Al-Jazira,
Aquifer System, Mandali-Badra-Teeb, Mesopotamian and Desert Aquifer system.
Recently, Iraq is suffering from water shortage problems. This is due to external
and internal factors affecting the water quality of water resources; they are
controlled and uncontrolled factors. The uncontrolled factors are climate change
and its consequences, such as reduction of precipitation and temperature increasing.
The controlled factors have a significantly negative influence on water resources,
but their effects involve more specific regions. The controlled factors are mainly
represented by building dams and irrigation projects within the upper parts of the
Tigris and Euphrates catchments, Al-Tharthar Scheme, waste water, solid wastes
and wastes from wars, which has a significant effect on surface water in Iraq
because about 80% of the water supply to Euphrates and Tigris Rivers come from
Turkey.
In addition, the pressures resulting from the high demand for water resources, and
the continued decline in their quantity rates have led to major changes in the hydrological condition in Iraq during the past 30 years. The decrease in surface
water levels and precipitation during these three decades reflects the drop in the
levels of water reservoirs, lakes, and rivers to the unexpected levels. The level of
main country’s water source, Tigris, and Euphrates Rivers has fallen to less than a
third of its natural levels. As storage capacity depreciates, the government estimates
that its water reserves have been reduced precariously. According to the survey from
the Ministry of Water Resources, millions of Iraqi people have faced a severe
shortage of drinking water.
Since of the importance of water for human life and the need to monitor temporal
and spatial changes in quality and quantity, there is a need to develop a general Iraqi
Water Quality Index (Iraq WQI) to monitor surface water and groundwater and
classify it into five categories, very good, good, acceptable, bad and very bad, in
terms of suitability for domestics, irrigation and agriculture depending on the Iraqi
and WHO standards for drinking water. In addition, strict establishment for the
regular quantitative monitoring surface water and groundwater setting and
processes. Prospects are more negative for all riparian countries. This implies that
solving these problems requires actual and serious international, regional, and
national cooperation to set a prudent plan for water resources management of the
two basins. Iraq being the most affected country should seriously set a prudent,
scientific, and strategic plan for the management and conservation of its water
resources.

Keywords: Pollution, Water Quality, Waste, Surface water, Groundwater, Iraq.