Salinity Management in Arid Regions - Restorative Redevelopment of Devastated Ecocultural Landscapes - page 419

FIGURE 21.1 ( Continued ) Irrigation practices in the United Arab Emirates (old farm well
head, restored channels in an ancient oasis, drip apparatus sustaining a tree, and a small farm
growing fodder for camels) and Syria (diesel pumps and metal and plastic piping sustaining
large-scale grain fields).
the geographical northward migration of sequential Mesopotamian civilizations
from Sumeria (south of present-day Basra) to Akkadia to Babylonia to Assyria
(north of present-day Baghdad) can be linked to ruined land due to overwhelming
problems in salinization. And it is possible that the gradual shift in crops from
wheat to barley might be a result of the latter's higher salinity tolerance. Today,
salt is very evident on the ground around the ancient ruins of Mari, an important
ancient Mesopotamian city near the Euphrates River and beside the modern border
with Iraq (Figure 21.2).
Like wetlands ecology and design, salinity management is a broad area which
will be significantly condensed in this chapter. Sulfate is one of the components of
salinity, and there are often problems with sulfide toxicity in wetlands—which can,
however, be managed by manipulating water levels to provide redox conditions for
mitigation. This strategy can also be applied to broader marsh areas where water lev-
els can be regulated, and certainly there are many such water control facilities in the
marshland region at present (indeed, that is one of the problems). It is also possible
to recycle salt in the tissues of tolerant plants such as Spartina for beneficial use such
as for feeding cattle (Dickey and Madison 2004).
After discussing the background to salt management, a series of relevant applica-
tions from elsewhere will be presented. This will be followed by potential application
of these ideas to the Iraqi marshlands, including refining some of the recommenda-
tions already made in terms of regional restoration that are specifically targeted to
address salinity concerns.