Wiqaya - The Innovative Initiative with Potential to Drastically Reduce Iraq's Rising Sand Storms

A new project, aimed at tackling the increasing number of sand and dust storms in southern Iraq, is due to be underway soon, with officials meeting in Baghdad and Nasriyah to finalise logistics. 

Held between the 9th and 16th of February, the consultations were organised by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) as  part of their Wiqaya project.

Wiqaya, meaning “prevention” in Arabic, is an initiative that looks to bring together regional governments, international organisations and local communities to implement water-based strategies that mitigate the destructive effects of sand storms in Iraq.

Dr. Mitchell McTough, Wiqaya Project Lead and IWMI researcher, said the initiative is now “at the tail end of its design and planning phase, transitioning toward implementation, with scaling aimed to end by December 2027.”
Rather than launching large-scale construction from the outset, he stressed that “the project has been deliberately structured as a pilot-to-scale initiative, where field interventions are tightly coupled with evidence generation, simulation modelling and policy planning.”

At the centre of this approach is IWMI’s development of Resilient Nature Based Water Solutions (RNBWS), a concept designed specifically for water-stressed countries like Iraq. While nature based solutions are frequently promoted, Dr. McTough argues that water management is often overlooked.

RNBWS is particularly valuable in Iraq, he says, “where NbS is peddled, but water is not centred in this framing.” Though they are yet to be fully designed, the RNBWS that will be implemented in Iraq will incorporate a number of strategies that aim to stabilise degraded land and sand-prone surfaces, manage soil and water salinity and enhance water security and management.

The project is funded by the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and forms part of their broader efforts to enhance climate resilience in the region, with similar programmes underway in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. The FCDO’s PHENOMENAL Programme, through which the Wiqaya project is funded, seeks to “tackle water scarcity, build adaptation and resilience and scale up International Climate Finance” across the Middle East and North Africa. It is this connection with similar projects, Dr. McTough says, which allows for “lessons from Wiqaya to connect directly into regional policy dialogues, digital decision-support tools and future climate and adaptation financing pipelines.”

According to organisers, the recent consultations were comprehensive in their scope, consisting of technical workshops, policy dialogues and field visits. Participants across a range of disciplines discussed policy, finance, and scaling pathways, as part of the design and planning phase of the Wiqaya project.

Sand and dust storms have been an ongoing  issue for those living in Iraq but, in recent years, they have become more intense due to rising global temperatures and the resulting droughts. Hayder Al-Shakeri, a research fellow with the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, says Iraq’s environmental crisis is being amplified by growing water scarcity. “Reduced river flows, drying marshlands, and collapsing agriculture are stripping the land of natural barriers against erosion.” This, he says, creates the perfect conditions for “more frequent and more severe dust storms.”

Iraq’s Environment Ministry estimates that the country currently experiences around 243 sand storms per year, with the UN’s environmental agency projecting an increase to 300 per year by 2050. The effects of these storms stretch into all aspects of Iraqi life, from public health and education to agriculture and the wider economy.  Farmers, particularly in southern Governorates, face mounting crop losses as once fertile land is stripped of top soil and irrigation systems are clogged with sand.

While Iraq’s climate future remains uncertain, it is innovative projects such as this that provide the country with a fighting chance. If successful, the Wiqaya initiative will not only help to stabilise degraded land and reduce the devastating impact of sand storms, it will provide a model for how climate resilience projects can be implemented in a streamlined and cost-effective manner: substantiated by empirical evidence before ground is broken.

Source: International Water Management Institute