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Iraq’s needs lay in needing to upgrade its aging water infrastructure and modernize ancient farming practices.

CHIBAYISH, Iraq -- Abbas Hashem fixed his worried gaze on the horizon -- the day was almost gone and still, there was no sign of the last of his water buffaloes. He knows that when his animals don't come back from roaming the marshes of this part of Iraq, they must be dead.

Abbas Hashem fixed his worried gaze on the horizon — the day was almost gone and still, there was no sign of the last of his water buffaloes. He knows that when his animals don’t come back from roaming the marshes of this part of Iraq, they must be dead. The dry earth is cracked…

Iraq’s water buffaloes are suffering from dire water shortages in the country's iconic southern marshes. Herders are struggling to keep their animals alive and have watched many die, poisoned by salty water seeping into the low-lying wetlands. The marshes — a lush remnant of the cradle of civilization and a sharp contrast to the desert that prevails across much of the Middle East — were reborn after the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein, when dams he had built to drain the area and root out Shiite rebels were dismantled. But today, drought that experts believe is spurred by climate change...

This year, acute water shortages — the worst in 40 years, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization — have driven buffalo herders deeper into poverty and debt