Iraq begins trial program to monitor household water consumption

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Ministry of Construction said Monday it has launched a project to monitor water use in households by recording supply and consumption meters three times a day, starting with four governorates.

The ministry said the project began in Basmaya Residential City under the supervision of the General Directorate of Water and covers Baghdad, Erbil, Kirkuk and Dhi Qar in its first phase.

The initiative is intended to reduce consumption and ensure fair distribution. “Procedures to implement the calculation of each household’s water share are applied, relying in its surveys and statistics on urban, semi-urban and rural cities through reading supply meters and consumption meters connected to each apartment, with three readings per day,” the ministry said.

The readings are transmitted to an electronic platform that analyzes the data to track household usage. Officials said the project “will contribute to redesigning according to the actual needs of the population, to be generalized in the future to all districts and subdistricts of the country.”