Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ecosystem functions and cultural services. Iran's damming of the Karkheh River,
which feeds directly into the marshes, and its construction of a barricade along the
border running through the Hawr al Hawizeh Marsh, is resulting in the desiccation
and destruction of Iraq's most pristine remaining marsh—a wetland that in 2008 at
the Ninth Meeting of the Ramsar Convention Conference of the Parties (Ramsar
COP9) was designated a Wetland of International Significance and Iraq's first Ramsar
site (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 1982).
When the marshes were rehydrated in 2003, aquatic vegetation rapidly colonized
much of its former area. For example, reeds were growing at sufficient height, density,
and areal coverage to meet the needs of the Marsh People within a fairly short time
frame. Unfortunately, reeds became stunted or killed by current drought conditions,
which produced higher salinities, increased temperatures, increased eutrophication,
anoxic conditions, and lower pH.
Today, besides the urgent need for water in the marshes, the main challenges for
resource management issues include the following: (1) reduced flood pulses, (2) for-
mation of salt crusts, (3) uncontrolled burning of marsh vegetation, (4) overharvesting
of reeds, (5) overfishing through nonsustainable fishing methods (electrocution, dy-
namite, and chlordane), (6) invasion of exotic species, and (7) overgrazing by water
buffalo on submerged plants and by camels on grassland and patchy shrubs.
Water Rights and a Call for Social Justice
With good water years since 2003, water returned to approximately 58 percent of the
marshland area. Unfortunately, there was a severe drought in 2007 and 2008 (UNEP
2009). Now the Mesopotamian marshes are once again drying up, and the Iraqi peo-
ple who depend on them are desperate to maintain their marshes and traditional
lifestyle. The picture is grim: less than 30 percent of the marshes remained hydrated
in February 2009; the water levels of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers continue to drop;
marshes recede; and the fish, reeds, and water buffalo that embody the marshes die
(Muir 2009; Nature Iraq 2009). After persecution and genocide under Saddam Hus-
sein, the Ma'dan came home to the marshes hoping to regain their traditional
lifestyle. With their marsh homeland disappearing into a salt-encrusted wasteland,
they are once again a people dispossessed. The Ma'dan are now becoming urban
refugees, squatting on lands they do not have ownership or rights to, attempting to eke
out an existence with their water buffalo. The fragility and vulnerability of the vast
marsh ecosystem is also jeopardized by a weak Iraqi government, without the political
will or influence to demand riparian water rights from upstream users in the Tigris-
Euphrates watershed.
Despite all these socioecological tragedies, the Mesopotamian marshes are loved
by the Iraqi people, especially the people of the south. They are anxious to see the
marshes restored, even though the restoration could be difficult given the extent and
magnitude of the degradation. What seems apparent is that without intervention from
powerful outside countries to broker water rights in the Tigris-Euphrates watershed,
the marshes will die and the people will be dispossessed of their lifestyle, their cultural
heritage, and their beloved marshes.
