Iraq's 'pearl of the south' Lake Sawa dry amid water crisis,

[progree]

Iraq's 'pearl of the south' Lake Sawa dry amid water crisis, AP, 6/18/22

This year, for the first time in its centuries-long history, the lake dried up. A combination of mismanagement by local investors, government neglect and climate change has ground down its azure shores to chunks of salt.

. . . Lake Sawa is only the latest casualty in this broad country-wide struggle with water shortages that experts say is induced by climate change, including record low rainfall and back-to-back drought.

. . . “The degradation of the water began over 10 years ago, but this summer was the first time we lost the entire wetland,” said Laith Ali al-Obeidi, an environmental activist in southern Iraq.

Experts said the lake has not dried up for good but its disappearance this year is a concerning consequence of the thousands of illegal wells dug by businessmen in nearby cement factories and manufacturing zones, a result of drought and decreasing waters along the nearby Euphrates.

By early June, some water began to reappear because farmers, done with the harvest season, stopped diverting underground water.

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It was apparently only 5 square miles in the good ol' days, so it wasn't a monster.

It is south of Baghdad -- about halfway between Baghdad and the Iraq-Saudi border.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawa_Lake

Map

I've been seeing several articles lately about how long and severe Iraq's drought has been.

[NCLefty]

1. Over-clutching?

*snork*

[progree]

3. Ha ha. It took me awhile. At first I thought of a car's manual transmission ("stick shift")

and riding the clutch pedal. I then thought, no that can't be it, what am I missing. Finally looked at my OP and there's "pearl" in the headline.

[ornotna]

2. Interesting body of water

Lake Sawa is a unique body of water in Iraq since characterized by highest salinity value (up to 35 g/l as TDS)[2] among Iraqi inland bodies water. Chemical and isotope analyses revealed its meteoric origin and a confirm a main feeding from the ascending groundwater from the lake bottom via joints, cracks, and fissure systems.[2] The lake has longitudinal shape with 4.47 km, long and 1.77 km wide. The water level in the lake is one of the manifestations of the lake, which gives something of aesthetic and strangeness. Strangeness reflected the fact that the water level in the lake is higher than the adjacent land around the lake by 1–4 meters. Add to that, the water level of the lake is also higher than the water level of the Euphrates River by 5–7 meters which flow near the lake to the east side and the Shat Al-Arab and Persian Gulf by 17–20 m

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawa_Lake