He laid out inflatable water floats, nets and shirts in front of his lakeside shop, but expected few if any customers. The United Nations ranks water-stressed Iraq as one of five countries most impacted by some effects of climate change. But now “the lake contains no more than 500 million cubic meters of water,” he told AFP. Declining rainfall over the past four years and rising temperatures have hit Habbaniyah — alongside much of the rest of the country — hard. “It’s the only place where people from Anbar, southern Iraq and Baghdad can come to relax.”

Source: Libya Today August 14, 2023 15:37 UTC