Abstract

The Mesopotamian marshlands the largest wetland in the Middle East and one of the most outstanding in the world have been lost mainly as a result of drainage and damming The cause of the decline is mainly as a result of damming upstream as well as drainage schemes since the 1970s The Tigris and the Euphrates are amongst the most intensively dammed rivers in the world In the past 40 years tThe Mesopotamian marshlands the largest wetland in the Middle East and one of the most outstanding in the world have been lost mainly as a result of drainage and damming The cause of the decline is mainly as a result of damming upstream as well as drainage schemes since the 1970s The Tigris and the Euphrates are amongst the most intensively dammed rivers in the world In the past 40 years the two rivers have been fragmented by the construction of more than 30 large dams whose storage capacity is several times greater than the volume of both rivers The immediate cause of marshland loss however has been the massive drainage works implemented in southern Iraq in the early 1990s following the second Gulf War Satellite images provide hard evidence that the once extensive marshlands have dried-up and regressed into desert with vast stretches salt encrusted Recent satellite imagery shows only limited areas of the marshlands have been reclaimed he two rivers have been fragmented by the construction of more than 30 large dams whose storage capacity is several times greater than the volume of both rivers The immediate cause of marshland loss however has been the massive drainage works implemented in southern Iraq in the early 1990s following the second Gulf War Satellite images provide hard evidence that the once extensive marshlands have dried-up and regressed into desert with vast stretches salt encrusted Recent satellite imagery shows only limited areas of the marshlands have been reclaimed