Mesopotamian Marshlands: Going Down the Drain?

The world’s first civilization, the Sumerians, started in this fertile land and their descendants, known as the ‘Madan’ still live there. The marshlands, which are composed of an intricate network of marshes, pools and streams, have been long valued for their remarkable wetland ecology. They make up the largest wetland ecosystem in the Middle East and are considered to be one of the most outstanding fresh water ecosystems in the world.

The marshlands, which originally covered an area of between 15,000 to 20,000 square kilometers, were reduced to a mere 1,084 square kilometers straddling the Iran- Iraq border in the years between 1973 and 2000 as shown by satellite-based assessment studies carried out by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). From the year 2000 to 2002 an additional one third (325 square kilometers) of the marshlands have dried out from the 10% that remained. According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), “unless urgent action is taken to reverse the trend and re-habilitate the marshlands, the entire wetland known as the Hawr Al-Hawizeh in Iraq and Hawr Al-Azim in Iran , are likely to have gone in three to five years.”

“There is no doubt that the disappearance of the Mesopotamian marshlands represents a major environmental catastrophe that will be remembered as one of humanity's worst engineered disasters. It is a devastating account embodying in many respects the environmental crises of our times,” said Klaus T?pfer, UNEP’s Executive Director.

The decline began in the 1950’s with the extensive damming of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers by both Syria and Turkey for irrigation purposes. More than 30 dams have been constructed, dividing the two rivers into several fragments. The combined storage capacity of the dams is several times greater than the volume of both rivers. This has caused a significant reduction in the water that reaches the downstream ecosystems and has brought an end to the floodwaters that supported the marshlands (UNEP).

The marshlands were reduced to a salt encrusted, barren desert

This was followed by the extensive draining of the marshlands by the Iraqi government in the early 1990’s after the Gulf War and the building of a system of canals and dikes in order to divert river waters. The drainage was an attempt by the government to force the Madan, who played an important role in the uprising against Saddam Hussein’s regime, out of the marshes. During that time, the marshlands dried up and were reduced to a salt encrusted, barren desert. This drainage is blamed for the destruction of most of the marshlands. The remaining 7% of the marshes are rapidly diminishing due to upstream water projects such as the construction of new dams, as the huge dam being built by Iran , and the diversion of river waters for irrigation purposes.

Extinction of a Culture

Marsh Arabs

The disappearance of the marshes has caused the collapse of a distinct community of people that used to inhabit the marshlands. These are an indigenous people known as the ‘Marsh Arabs’ or Madan, the heirs to the 5,000-year-old culture of the Sumerians and Babylonians who started the first known civilizations in this area.

It is estimated by Human Rights Watch that of the original 250,000 Marsh Arabs, only 40,000 remain and these 40,000 are either internally displaced within Iraq or living in refugee camps in Iran . The Madan who lived in the marshes until as recently as the 1990’s lived on water buffalo and fish for food and exported the surplus to other areas in Iraq. They used boats to move around from place to place and constructed elaborate arched dwellings deep in the marshes, which sometimes stood as high as 15 feet, using thick marsh reeds.

An estimated 40 species of waterfowl such as the Sacred Ibis and the African darter are at risk of extinction now due to the desiccation of the marshes. The loss of this rich ecosystem that supported a diverse collection of aquatic vegetation has also had significant repercussions to global diversity from Russia to Southern Africa affecting the migration of birds that used this desert oasis as a pit stop.

The marshes also acted as a natural wastewater treatment system to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, filtering them of contaminants and wastes before they spilled into the Persian Gulf . Their desiccation has led to sharp declines in coastal fisheries in the northern Persian Gulf that also depended in part on the marshes as a nursery and spawning ground. It is feared that some species that were unique to the area such as the buni fish, the smooth-covered otter and the bandicoot rat may have already disappeared.

What Should Be Done?

According to Klaus Toepfer, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Program, an assessment is needed to address all of the issues that have a potential impact on the marshes, which include the drainage projects and the dams built upstream. He believes there is still a last window of opportunity to reverse the marshland desiccation and to achieve at least partial restoration.

The measures that would lead to this reversal would include an emergency release of water from reservoir dams in Iran and Iraq to simulate the seasonal flood. However a long-term recovery plan would also be needed, says Toepfer.

UNEP calls on Iraq and other riparian countries including Syria and Turkey as well as Iran to share the rivers’ waters in a coordinated and equitable manner allowing a sufficient amount of water to the wetlands, while timing the release of water from existing dams to mimic the natural flow patterns and revive the marshlands.

However reviving the wetlands will not be a simple process. In order for the process to work, the right quantity and quality of water must be used together with adequate timing. Some of the marsh areas were burned over and are now too alkaline or acidic to be recovered. Other areas have thick salt crusts some as thick as two feet, due to the rapid evaporation of brackish groundwater. Therefore samples will be taken to allow the determination of areas most likely to recover and also to detect the presence of contaminants including sewage, industrial and agricultural waste, military debris and other toxins (The Washington Post).

Eden Again is the name of a project that aims at restoring the marshes. The project is being led by an Iraqi exile and his American wife and is backed by the Iraq Foundation, an exile organization. The project also aims at the rehabilitation of the Marsh Arab culture. The cost of such a project is not known, however it is being compared by scientists to that of the restoration of the Everglades , which cost billions of dollars.

The growing threats facing wetlands, being one of the most valuable habitats on Earth, place personal well-being and political stability at risk. The degradation of our limited ecosystems must be stopped before the price we will have to pay becomes too high

Sources:

• MSNBC, 2003: An environmentalist's take on war. 
• UNEP, 2003: Garden of Eden” in Southern Iraq Likely to Disappear Completely in Five Years Unless Urgent Action Taken.
• T?pfer, Klaus. The Mesopotamian Marshlands: Demise of an Ecosystem. UNEP.
• UNEP, 2001: Message from Klaus Tôpfer, UNEP's Executive Director, on the Release of the Mesopotamian Marshlands Report: A Call for Action.
• UNEP Study Sounds Alarm about the Disappearance of the Mesopotamian Marshlands.
• Jacobson, Louis, 2003: Back to Eden: Restoring the Marshes of Iraq. The Washington Post Company.
• McQuaid, John, 2003 : Iraqi Exile Leading Move to Restore Homeland of Marsh Arabs. Newhouse News Service.
• Fritz, Mark, 2002: Ancient Iraqi swamp culture drained but not dead. Tri-Valley central.

Aisha El-Awady M.D is an editor at the Health and Science section of IslamOnline.net. She is currently working as Lecturer of Parasitology at the Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University. She may be contacted at sciencetech@islamonline.net