The Center of Urban and Regional Planning for Postgraduate Studies at the University of Baghdad discussed the master’s thesis entitled (Assessing the environmental impacts of squatter housing in Hilla city – the study area of Salam sector) for the student Athir Askar Ismail, and supervised by Assistant Professor Dr. Suad Jaber Lafta. The thesis aimed to shed light on the informal areas in Hilla in the peace sector and identify the most important environmental problems resulting from it and provide appropriate planning solutions.
The student assumed in his thesis that informal housing in the peace sector causes environmental problems, and these problems can be reduced by applying the planning strategies followed to address informal housing. The thesis concluded that informal housing leads to negative effects on the environment, health, social and economic, and that neighborhoods built on agricultural lands have negatively affected the ecosystems in the study area. The thesis recommended the need to pay attention to studying the environmental aspect, especially in establishing housing units and activating laws that limit the spread of the problem of informal housing and protecting agricultural lands and preventing construction on them.
