Enhancing the urban environment in the Kurdistan region, Northern Iraq.

Abstract

In the Kurdistan region of Northern Iraq, the physical structure of cities and their environments have been undergoing drastic changes, including expansion onto fertile agricultural lands. Within urban areas commercial developments are built at the expense of existing open spaces and parks. Parks and open spaces in proposed land use plans have not been implemented. Collectively, these changes lead to environmental disturbances so that the cities are not as pleasant as they used to be. Urgent solutions are needed in order to enhance their environments and protect them from further deterioration. This paper is based on the personal knowledge and experience gained by the author through living in Hawlair (Arbil), the regional capital of Kurdistan and working for several years as an urban planner in the city's Planning Department. The paper explores reasons for these changes in order to address their adverse impact on the environments of cities and their inhabitants. The paper makes some recommendations for improv ing urban environments to be comfortable places for living and working, and for a sustainable form of development.

Dans la region du Kurdistan situee au nord de I'lrak, les structures physiques des villes et leur environnement connaissent des changements radicaux, parmi lesquels une expansion vers les fertiles terres agricoles. Dans les regions urbaines, les developpments lies au commerce se font au detriment des espaces ouverts et des parcs existants. Les plans d'amenagement urbain ne prevoient ni parcs ni espaces ouverts, rendant ainsi les villes moins agreables qu'auparavant. II est urgent de trouver des solutions ce probleme afin d'ameliorer les environnements urbains et de les proteger de deteriorations encore plus importantes. Cet article est ecrit sur la base des connaissances et experiences personnelles de l'auteur, qui a vecu Hawlair (Arbil), la capitale regionale du Kurdistan, et qui y a ete urbaniste pendant plusieurs annees. Cet article explore les raisons qui sous-tendent ces changements et questionne leurs repercussions negatives sur les environnements urbains et leurs habitants, puis propose quelques recommandations visant faire des villes des lieux ou il fait bon vivre et travailler, en preconisant une forme durable de developpement.

Keywords

Kurdistan, urban environments, planning, indigenous building materials, green spaces

Introduction

The environments of cities in the Kurdistan region of Northern Iraq are less clean, healthy and comfortable now than they were in the 1940s. This situation reflects the many environmental problems caused by the inadequacy of green areas, expanding urbanization, the burning of fossil fuels, and greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power stations and factories. Cities are expanding onto agricultural lands and the already limited green areas are disappearing from the urban scene, giving way to more renumerative commercial development. The abandonment of indigenous building materials and native building design has converted cities into masses of concrete and steel that are used in the construction of buildings incompatible with the local climate.

Urbanization is changing the fabric of cities as well as their environments. Since the 1950s new squatter settlements at the periphery of cities have added to the existing built-up areas, leading to further environmental degradation. For the last three decades, inhabitants of cities in the Kurdistan region have expressed concern about the changes occurring in their environment, such as climate warming, dust storms due to unpaved roads and undeveloped lands within cities, and an increase in the quantity and quality of liquid and solid wastes.

Cities in the region are in need of improvement through an increase in open spaces and parkland and through adoption of comprehensive greening policies and measures for controlling environmental disturbance.

The intention of this study is to discuss environmental problems in cities of the Kurdistan region, focusing on the changes that are occurring in the physical structure of cities, on their causes, and on exploring ways to improve the situation and prevent further deterioration. The study is based on observation and analysis carried out while the author lived in and visited these cities while working in the Planning Department in Hawlair (Arbil), the regional capital of the Kurdistan region. Day-to-day contact with the public, politicians, developers and planners, as well as regular visits to and contacts with the local planning authorities, also contributed to a better understanding of the activities, capacities and shortcomings of these groups and the problems that they face.

The study argues that effective urban planning, together with plans supported by new planning acts that take into consideration the environmental problems of cities and towns, would be a positive step in mitigating current problems and achieving healthier cities in the future.

Location, area, population and climate

The Kurdistan region has been administered by the Kurds since late 1991, when the allied forces that participated in the Second Gulf War designated it as a "Safe Haven Zone" to protect the Kurdish people from Saddam Hussein's attacks. The region is still politically part of Iraq, however.

Iraq is situated in southwest Asia and is bordered to the north by Turkey, by Jordan and Syria to the west, by Iran to the east, and by the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to the south. The country covers an area of 438,446 square kilometres; its population, according to …