The aim of the meeting was to provide immediate recommendations and solutions to the current water crisis in the Central Marshes and most of the relevant authorities and stakeholders were present.
The following agencies were represented in this workshop:
- Maysan Marsh Projects Directorate
- Al-Kheir Sub-district Local Council
- Maysan Marshes Directorate
- Maysan Water Resources Directorate
- Maysan Provincial Council
- Local NGO
- Maysan Health Directorate
The Lecturer talked about the main problems of the current crisis in the Central Marshes and In the meanwhile, a documentary on the water crisis in the marshes was shown to the attendants.
After reactive discussions among the attendants, the meeting concluded with some recommended immediate and strategic solutions to the crisis. The immediate solutions are as follows:
- Securing emergency water releases for the mashes as the Central Marshes need 40 m3 for two weeks in order to achieve prompt compensation and then 30 m3 continually
- Releasing 180m3 from Kut dam from now till the agricultural season in October with 15% of this water goes to the marshes
- Expanding Al-Jifir canal which is 5-7 km long to Esegle canal
- Constructing water pit for buffalo herders
- Adopting modern irrigation techniques
- Re-activating the petrochemicals factory to provide irrigation tools
- Putting water management plan for draught and worst scenarios
- Seeking political solutions with the riparian countries
- Benefiting from historical draught cases to deal properly with the problem
- Better coordination among all relevant authorities and stakeholders
- Activation and enforcement of the legislations against illegal uses of water like aquaria and irrigation
- Better and fairer management of water shares among the governorates in the Central and Lowe Euphrates