Synoptic monitoring of water's return to Mesopotamian marshlands

Abstract

The Mesopotamian Marshlands are a recorded element of Sumerian culture since 5000 B.C. [Thesiger, 1964],and have withstood multiple impacts over the centuries until the twentieth century development of dams on the Tigris‐Euphrates systems and greater water demand in Turkey Syria, and Iraq [Gruen,2000] increased their vulnerability to human impact. Devastation of >90% of ∼20,000 km2 of the marshlands [Partow, 2001] occurred over a remarkably short period of time near the end of the twentieth century, when the majority of the area was drained beginning in 1991.The late twentieth century barren landscape showed little hope of a return to its aquatic character until a 2003 military strategy, implemented March through May resulted in return of water to areas that had not been inundated for >10 years. Ali Shaheen, chief of the Iraqi Irrigation Department in Nasiriyah, reported that the tactic of flooding the marshes was designed to interfere with military advances from the south [Axon, 2003].