Attachments
Introduction: pressing concerns about water insecurity in Iraq
Although global migration is - contrary to popular discourse - remarkably stable representing on average 3% of the global population in the last 50 years, the majority of people tend to migrate within rather than across borders (World Migration Report 2022, 2021).
Statistics published by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) report that 30 out of the 40 million internal displacements in 2020 were related to water-related hazards (IDMC, 2021). Similarly, the World Bank estimates that slow-onset climate events such as droughts could lead to 216 million internal migrants by 2050 (Clement et al., 2021). These predictions capture the growing mobilisation by the international community to understand and respond to this migratory shift, as mobility is now predominantly internal, prompted for a large part by climate and water-related events.
This paper analyses the nexus from water insecurity towards the loss of economic livelihoods in agriculture and, further, migration (or non-migration) in southern Iraq. Iraq, historically located in the fertile crescent1 , draws attention because of its steep decline in water supply and related socio-economic challenges (Birkman et al., 2022). Since the 1980s, water from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, which provide up to 98% of Iraq’s water supply, have decreased by 30% (Alwash et al., 2018, p. 6; Von Lossow, 2018, p. 2). This decline of water availability is not simply the result of climate change, but also the product of anthropogenic or human factors such as intensive water usage by industries, upstream construction of dams in the river basin, and outdated and dysfunctional water infrastructures (Birkman et al. 2022).
While a direct link between water insecurity and migration cannot be drawn, water insecurity may indirectly increase migration patterns by impacting individuals’ socio-economic situation (Cai et al., 2016). About 18% of Iraq’s workforce is employed in agriculture (World Bank, n.d.-a). As such, the agricultural sector’s intensive water usage and livelihood dependencies could subject Iraqi society to water-induced migration. This paper argues that water insecurity can prompt internal migration when economic livelihoods are harmed and individuals’ adaptive capacity is weak, i.e., they lack alternative employment opportunities, a strong social safety net etc.
If this adaptive capacity is strengthened by targeted policy interventions, individuals may choose alternative ways to cope with water insecurity and decide to stay rather than migrate.