ئەز   Mahmood Abed Yousuf

During the last few decades, a critical scarcity of water has occurred in the Middle East due to climate change and the mismanagement of water resources. The situation is complicated by the absence of an effective legislative framework at the local level as well as by the incapability and disrepute of the local water authorities. Most Iraqi citizens depend on the surface waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which have their sources in upstream neighbouring countries. Water crises concerning the shared waters urgently require a solution at the international level. Unfortunately, Iraq has faced several wars in a row (1980–2003), which has prevented the country from establishing its institutions. The rapid increase in the population of the transboundary countries on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the high demands on agriculture, are accelerating water exploitation. In this paper, the present state of water management in Iraq from the viewpoint of the legislative framework, water balance, and transboundary issues will be discussed, with special attention to Kurdistan. Many legislative documents have been established or amended by the Iraqi and Kurdistan parliaments since 2003. In 2015, the Kurdistan Government Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, in cooperation with the EU, issued a guide for environmental legislation related to all environmental components such as air, water, and soil. The recommendations on actions needed in the water management in Kurdistan will be presented; they are inspired by the Water Framework Directive (WFD) (2000/60/EC) implemented in EU member states.

Groundwater has become a preferable and reliable natural treasure in last decades as an alternative of surface water. This is due to high-demand on water especially after surface resources faced negative impacts under the influence of climate change and contamination exposure. This fact forced the stakeholders and hydrogeologists to seek for another alternative using groundwater resources. The study area (Khazir-Basin) covers about 1055km2. It is located in mountainous-undulating area in Kurdistan Region in NorthernIraq. The average annual temperature and precipitation are 19 Co and 669 mm, respectively. The numerous deep wells have been drilled in the study area during the last 50 years and most of them are penetrating Bakhtiari Formation (the main aquifer) with average depth of 200 m, which mostly consists, in its lower part called Lower Bakhtiari Formation, Sequential layers of gravely sandstone, sandstone and red mudstone, while the upper part, Upper Bakhtiari Formation, consists of conglomerates. This Formation covers over 75% of the study area. The application of groundwater management over the region is facing several obstacles due to the high demand in daily use (domestic, agriculture and industry) and the scarcity of water resources under the effect of climate change as well. Recently, Kurdistan region is challenging two main tasks politically related to the problem of exploitation of transboundary water bodies (rivers) withTurkey and Iran, because all main head waters of rivers are out of Kurdistan Region. The second field of problems to be solved is the socio-economic culture of consumers concerning the miss-obligation toward consuming rules with the absence of installing supply regulators.This paper will discuss the appropriate issues of groundwater management for case study region