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.
Abstract:
Interest in the topic of prediction has increased in recent years and appeared modern methods such as Artificial Neural Networks models, if these methods are able to learn and adapt self with any model, and does not require assumptions on the nature of the time series. On the other hand, the methods currently used to predict the classic method such as Box-Jenkins may be difficult to diagnose chain and modeling because they assume strict conditions.
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Three seismic instantaneous attributes (phase, frequency, and variance) were utilized on 3D-seismic poststack migrated data, covering 617.31 km2, integrated with data of two wells (Du-1 and Du-2) in Dujaila oil field, southeast of Iraq. They gave good results in detecting reef buildups and confirmed the existence of the stratigraphic hydrocarbon trap that was not obvious in the conventional seismic amplitude sections. They display several seismic criteria in attribute sections for recognizing reef buildups and hydrocarbon accumulation, such as phase reversal, low frequency, and high amplitude variance. The seismic attributes emphasized that the stratigraphic trap of reef rudist buildups with hydrocarbon content is con
... Show MoreAntacids are commonly used drugs which are considered inert and free of pharmacological effect by many patients and physicians. They are weak bases that neutralize the gastric acid and relief pain. These weak bases dissociate to neutralize gastric acid and form neutral salts. The ultimate goal of antacid therapy is to reduce the concentration and a total load of acid in gastric juice to a pH 4 - 5. This in vitro study was promised to study the acid neutralizing capacity (ANC) of six commonly available antacids tablets in the Iraqi market by using back titration method. The highest ANC values were for Rennie (17.131± 0.083 and 16.926± 0.052 mEq) in two different hydrochloric acid (HCl) concentrations 1N and 0.5 N, respectively. The static
... Show MoreInvestigating the heavy metals in soil is important to the life of humans and living organisms. Diyala River Lower Reaches was chosen due to the changes in environmental characteristics that took place in recent years. Twelve sediment samples were collected from four different sites. The physical, and chemical properties and the concentrations of nine heavy metals were indicated. The results showed that the average concentrations of arsenic, copper, chromium, cobalt, iron, manganese, nickel, lead, and zinc are 8.5, 45.7, 538.5, 12.2, 5.07, 991.7, 183.5, 16.07, 136.5 ppm, respectively. They reflect contamination with arsenic, chromium, and nickel, while they are free of lead, and zinc contamination, according to the Environmental Pro
... Show MoreThe carbonate ramp facies of the Late Albian-Early Cenomanian Mauddud Formation were studied in the Ratawi Oilfield, Basra Governorate, south of Iraq using integrated borehole data set that included, core and cutting samples in three drilled wells to analyze the petrography of the Mauddud Formation, two hundred and eighty-one (281) thin sections were prepared and examined for the three selected wells. The results show that the formation is composed of light grey dolomitized limestone and pseudo-oolitic creamy limestone with green to bluish shale. The petrographic observations results show four facies’ associations in the Mauddud Formation. These include: Mid–Ramp environment which is represented by Argillaceous mudstone mi
... Show MoreThe 2-D Resistivity imaging survey conducted within the desert area to meet the region's need of groundwater, due to the absence of any surface water, in addition, there are no any geophysical studies carried out previously. Ten point survey was performed to study the ground water aquifers in the southwest of Samawah city, Iraq. The length of the survey line in each point survey is 1200 meters by using 120 electrodes with 10 meters electrode spacing by applying Wenner-Schlumberger array. There are three main resistivity zones in the study area. The first resistivity zone ranging between 2.00-10.1 ohm.m, locate at shallow depth, represented Quaternary deposits. The second resistivity zone ranging between 22.8-51.3 ohm.m, it represents bea
... Show MoreThis study is achieved in the local area of the Eridu oil field, where the Mishrif Formation is considered the main productive reservoir. The Mishrif Formation was deposited during the Cretaceous period in the secondary sedimentary cycle (Cenomanian-Early Turonian as a part of the Wasia Group, a carbonate succession widespread throughout the Arabian Plate.
The Mishrif Formation already have been evaluated in terms of depositional environments and their diagenetic processes. Here, it will test the previous conclusions with petrophysical properties delineated by using well logging. The results show there is a fully matching with two reservoir units (MA and MB). Dissolution and primary porosity are responsible for f
... Show MoreShuaiba Formation is a carbonate succession deposited within Aptian Sequences. This research deals with the petrophysical and reservoir characterizations characteristics of the interval of interest in five wells of the Nasiriyah oil field. The petrophysical properties were determined by using different types of well logs, such as electric logs (LLS, LLD, MFSL), porosity logs (neutron, density, sonic), as well as gamma ray log. The studied sequence was mostly affected by dolomitization, which changed the lithology of the formation to dolostone and enhanced the secondary porosity that replaced the primary porosity. Depending on gamma ray log response and the shale volume, the formation is classified into three zone
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