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.
The restriction concept is a basic feature in the field of measure theory and has many important properties. This article introduces the notion of restriction of a non-empty class of subset of the power set on a nonempty subset of a universal set. Characterization and examples of the proposed concept are given, and several properties of restriction are investigated. Furthermore, the relation between the P*–field and the restriction of the P*–field is studied, explaining that the restriction of the P*–field is a P*–field too. In addition, it has been shown that the restriction of the P*–field is not necessarily contained in the P*–field, and the converse is true. We provide a necessary condition for the P*–field to obtain th
... Show MoreIdioms are a very important part of the English language: you are told that if you want to go far (succeed) you should pull your socks up (make a serious effort to improve your behaviour, the quality of your work, etc.) and use your grey matter (brain).1 Learning and translating idioms have always been very difficult for foreign language learners. The present paper explores some of the reasons why English idiomatic expressions are difficult to learn and translate. It is not the aim of this paper to attempt a comprehensive survey of the vast amount of material that has appeared on idioms in Adams and Kuder (1984), Alexander (1984), Dixon (1983), Kirkpatrick (2001), Langlotz (2006), McCarthy and O'Dell (2002), and Wray (2002), among others
... Show MorePerhaps the issue of media and the press, especially one of the most common topics that people deliberate and deal with permanently and continuously. An issue of such significance has pushed researchers to put the following question, “Is it possible to live without media?”, “Can people ignore the newspaper, radio, TV, or the other communication means?”
The answer is very simple. It is difficult for civilized society to overtake information, or dispense with circulation, at the individual or collective level. Yet, the question of how to make the media and how it determines its content still requires extensive media experience; and knowledge of the social structure and its relations; and ac
... Show MoreIn this paper we have studied the optical properties of CuBr thin
films. Different sample thicknesses have been prepared by using thermal evaporation technique with 14.4 runlsec as the average deposition rate and 1 00°C as the substrate temperature.
This study was carried out to investigate the effects of magnetized water on accumulated infiltration depth. A test rig was designed and constructed for this purpose was installed at the water tests laboratory of the Department of Water Resources Engineering at the University of aghdad. The investigation was carried out by using two types of soil, different flow velocities throughout magnetizing device and different configuration of magnets over and under the water passage of the magnetizing device. The soils that were used in the experiments are clayey and sandy soils. Six different flow velocities throughout magnetizing device ranged between 0.29 to 1.19 cm/s and ten configurations of arranging the magnets over and under th
... Show MoreThe present study aims to study the content and spatial distribution of lead (Pb) contamination in the soils of some Baghdad cities (Middle of Iraq). Twenty soil samples were randomly collected from different land-use in the studied area at a depth between 5 to 30 cm. Ten samples are collected from Al-Rissafa side areas (Adhamiya, Al-Wazeeria (Battery Manufacturer), Shikh Omer, Ziyouna, Karada, Shaab, Sadr city, Al-Za’franiya, Al-Dora expressway, and Alselikh ) and other ten samples are collected from Al-Krakh side areas Al-Dora, Al-Masafi junction, Al-Dora, Sayidia, Al-Salam university college, Al-Bayaa (Industrial District), Jehad, Amirya, Abu Ghraib, Al-hurriya, and Kadhimiya. The soil samples have been analyzed for the lead (P
... Show MoreBackground: We aimed to investigate the accuracy of salivary matrix metalloproteinases (MMP)-8 and -9, and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase (TIMP)-1 in diagnosing periodontitis and in distinguishing periodontitis stages (S)1 to S3. Methods: This study was a case–control study that included patients with periodontitis S1 to S3 and subjects with healthy periodontia (controls). Saliva was collected, and then, clinical parameters were recorded, including plaque index, bleeding on probing, probing pocket depth, and clinical attachment level. Diagnosis was confirmed by assessing the alveolar bone level using radiography. Salivary biomarkers were assayed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results: A total of 45 patients (15
... Show MoreThis paper presents a new approach to discover the effect of depth water for underwater visible light communications (UVLC). The quality of the optical link was investigated with varying water depth under coastal water types. The performance of the UVLC with multiple input–multiple output (MIMO) techniques was examined in terms of bit error rate (BER) and data rate. The theoretical result explains that there is a good performance for UVLC system under coastal water.
Food fortification has an important and necessary role in compensating for the shortage of nutritional micronutrients, especially in developing and least developed countries. So, 12 samples of flour available in the local market, whether imported or locally produced flour, were obtained during 2019. The amount of base metal of the necessary iron element in the flour models studied which are available in local markets, measured by spot testing and was compared with the values that should be added according to the specification Iraqi standard. Results revealed the qualitative evaluation of iron in locally produced flour does not conform to the Iraqi standard and is almost free of any reinforcement. While the percentage of imp
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