Abstract
SOME valuable information regarding the irrigated and non-irrigated land in Iraq is contained in a report by Sir Ernest Dowson on “Land Tenure and Related Questions”(Baghdad: Iraqi Government, 4s. 6d.). These statistics, which are shown also on large scale maps accompanying the report, were collected by the Irrigation Department, and show the immense possibilities for the extension of agriculture when conditions are favourable. It would appear that about twenty per cent of the total area of Iraq can be regarded as productive. This includes a northern rainfall zone covering about nine per cent, and a southern irrigation zone covering about eleven per cent. Not more than a fifth, and often as little as a tenth, of these zones are cultivated in any one year. An estimate of the rural population, for which complete accuracy is not claimed, puts the density of population so low as 19 per square kilometre in the rainfall zone, and about 35 in the most typical areas of the irrigation zones. These figures, especially the latter, are far below the potential population of the land, and compare unfavourably with the far greater density of population and higher productivity of similar lands in Egypt. Sir Ernest Dowson also comments on the lack of accurate topographical surveys in Iraq and the incompleteness of even the major triangulation. The report contains various recommendations regarding methods of land tenure, and naturally stresses, in this connexion, the need of further surveys.
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Land Conditions in Iraq. Nature 129, 826 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129826a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129826a0