Iraq Marshes recovering
Iraq, Environment, 5/31/2006

Since 2003, restoration of Iraq's destroyed Mesopotamian marshes has resulted in a "remarkable rate of reestablishment" of native plants, fish, birds and other life forms, according to an article in the June issue of the journal BioScience.

With funding from the US Agency for International Development, Curtis Richardson of Duke University in North Carolina and Najah Hussain of the University of Basrah in Iraq, wrote about fieldwork they conducted over the past two years in four large marshes in southern Iraq, according to a May 30 press release from the American Institute of Biological Sciences.

Many consider Iraq's Mesopotamian marshes to have been the cradle of Western civilization. The word Mesopotamia means "between rivers," referring to its location between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The marshes were once the largest wetlands in southwest Asia and covered more than 15,000 square kilometers. After a systematic effort by Saddam Hussein's regime to ditch, dike and drain the marshes of southern Iraq, less than 10 percent of the area remained as functioning marshland by 2000.

The marshes also once were famous for their biodiversity and cultural richness. They were the permanent habitat for millions of birds and a flyway for millions more migrating between Siberia and Africa.

The loss of the ecologically critical wetlands was of special concern because they were once home to 300,000 to 500,000 indigenous Marsh Arabs, tens of thousands of whom fled to southern Iran. Most of the refugees had returned to Iraq by the end of 2004, but they found few viable marshes remaining.

In the latest study, Richardson and Hussain found that water flow into the Iraq marshes from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers has been greater than expected because of record snowpack melts, which has kept salt levels low.

The incoming water quality also has been better than predicted, with toxin levels lower than scientists had feared.

As a result, the researchers say, many native species have returned, including some rare bird species, although their numbers have not rebounded to historical levels.

US scientists undertook a first assessment of the status of the marshes in June 2003. They found massive but uncoordinated reflooding – local farmers had begun blowing up dikes and dams after Saddam's regime collapsed in 2003 – and noted some re-establishment of native plants.

After monitoring the marshes in collaboration with Iraqi scientists, Richardson and Hussain reported that 39 percent of the former extent of the marshes had been reflooded by September 2005.

Despite incomplete data, the researchers found that in many respects the restored marshes they studied were functioning at levels close to those in one marsh that had not been drained.

The fast recovery of plant production, overall good water quality and rapid restoration of most wetland functions seem to indicate that the recovery of ecosystem function is well under way.

But the researchers point out that water inflow is unlikely to be sufficient to maintain the encouraging trends in coming years.

Fish catches are still poor, deterring many Marsh Arabs from returning to a traditional way of life.

More research is needed -- but is not being done, say Richardson and Hussain -- to determine how the marshes and agriculture can share water, identify sites of toxins and study insecticide use by local fishermen.

Previous Stories:
  Al-Sabah: Number of palm trees in Iraq decreased from 30 million to 10 million   (12/23/2003)
  USAID and reconstruction assistance for Iraq   (6/7/2003)

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