Ecosystems provide humans with services that include benefits from food, fresh water, climate regulation, and socio-economic assets. The Mesopotamian marshlands are among the largest wetlands in the Middle East and they provide various benefits. However, ecosystem services of the Marshlands are consistently undervalued in national economic analysis and decision making. This study focusses on the Central Marshes, the first National Park in Iraq, and is the first attempt at valuing a series of ecosystem services from a valuable natural ecosystem in Iraq. We adopted the Toolkit for Ecosystem Services Site-Based Assessment (TESSA) for the determination of biophysical and economic values of services at the site level. Data on key ecosystem services (as determined by 30 interviews with residents of the Marshes) included the trading of fish, harvested plants, water buffalo milk, and fodder were collected across six months in 2014. We valued the ecosystem services within the CM (40,000 ha) over a 6-month period to have a total value of 860,078.23 USD. This estimated total value was the sum of 86,637.25 USD from harvested plants, 551,334.80 USD from trading fish, 167, 303.70 USD from trading water buffalo milk, and 54,804.00 USD from trading fodder. The average income per individual in Iraq in 2014 was 6720 USD (World Bank data - https://data.worldbank.org/country/iraq): thus, the CM provided an average salary for 256 people. Our results provided greater understanding of the ecosystem services contributed by the Central Marshes and has highlighted the crucial role of nature in supporting sustainable well-being for humans living in the area. In addition, the results can be used to enhance local policy, to aid management plans of the National park, and to estimate lost and damage that could result from impact of climate change on the area.
Reuse of spent hydrodesulphurization (HDS) of middle petroleum fractions catalyst CoMo/γAl2O3 was accomplished via removal of coke and contaminants such as vanadium, Iron, Nickel, and sulfur. Three processes were adopted; extraction, leaching, decoking. Soluble and insoluble coke was removed. Leaching step used three different solvents (oxalic acid, ammonium peroxydisulfate and oxalic acid + H2O2) in separate in order to remove contaminant metals (V, S, Ni and Fe).
The effect of soluble coke removal on leaching step was studied. It was found that the removal of soluble coke significantly enhances the leaching of contaminants and barely affected the removal of active metals
... Show MoreThermal conductivity of compacted bentonite is one of the most important properties where this type of clay is proposed for use as a buffer material. In this study, Lee's disc method was used to measure the thermal conductivity of compacted bentonite specimens. The experimental results have been analyzed to observe the three major factors affecting the thermal conductivity of bentonite buffer material. While the clay density reaches to a target value, the measurement is taken to evaluate the thermal conductivity. By repeating this procedure, a relationship between clay dry density and thermal conductivity has been established in specimens after adjusting the water contents of the bentonite by placing its specimens in a drying oven for diffe
... Show MoreIron-Epoxy composite samples were prepared by added
different weight percentages (0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 wt %) from Iron
particles in the range of (30-40μm) as a particle size. The contents
were mixed carefully, and placed a circular dies with a diameter of
2.5 cm. Different mechanical tests (Shore D Hardness, Tensile
strength, and Impact strength ) were carried out for all samples. The
samples were immersed in water for ten weeks, and after two weeks
the samples were take-out and drying to conducting all mechanical
tests were repeated for all samples. The hardness values increased
when the Iron particle concentration increased while the Impact
strength is not affected by the increasing of Iron particles
c
The idea of a homomorphism of a cubic set of a KU-semigroup is studied and the concept of the product between two cubic sets is defined. And then, a new cubic bipolar fuzzy set in this structure is discussed, and some important results are achieved. Also, the product of cubic subsets is discussed and some theorems are proved.
The current study included the anatomical structure of the metatarsal bone in sheep in terms of the traditional structural description of the bone, as it was found that the metatarsal bone in the fore and hind limbs of adult sheep had no visible differences between it and animals, especially ruminants. The metacarpal \tarsal bone No. 3 was cylindrical in shape, with the presence of the metacarpal \tarsal bones 2 and 4 declines, articulated from the proximal end with the metacarpal and metatarsal bones whereas from the distal part with the fetlock joint and the first phalanx bone. The aim of the study is to determine whether the environment and its changes in Iraq have affected the animals and their bones in terms of length, thicknes
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