| Environment - current issues | government water control projects drained most of the inhabited marsh areas east of An Nasiriyah by drying up or diverting the feeder streams and rivers; a once sizable population of Marsh Arabs, who inhabited these areas for thousands of years, has been displaced; furthermore, the destruction of the natural habitat poses serious threats to the area's wildlife populations; inadequate supplies of potable water; soil degradation (salination) and erosion; desertification; military and industrial infrastructure has released heavy metals and other hazardous substances into the air, soil, and groundwater; major sources of environmental damage are effluents from oil refineries, factory and sewage discharges into rivers, fertilizer and chemical contamination of the soil, and industrial air pollution in urban areas |
| Environment - international agreements | party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands signed, but not ratified: Climate Change-Paris Agreement, Environmental Modification |
| Air pollutants | particulate matter emissions: 57.73 micrograms per cubic meter (2016 est.) carbon dioxide emissions: 190.06 megatons (2016 est.) methane emissions: 17.44 megatons (2020 est.) |
| Total water withdrawal | municipal: 1.23 billion cubic meters (2017 est.) industrial: 2.05 billion cubic meters (2017 est.) agricultural: 35.27 billion cubic meters (2017 est.) |
| Revenue from forest resources | forest revenues: 0% of GDP (2018 est.) |
| Revenue from coal | coal revenues: 0% of GDP (2018 est.) |
| Waste and recycling | municipal solid waste generated annually: 13.14 million tons (2015 est.) |
Source: CIA World Factbook
This page was last updated on September 18, 2021
