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 regions around the world need to perform their results based on the local geoid. However, each region has different ground topography based on the amount of gravity in this region. Nowadays, the recent global Earth's gravity model of 2008 is successfully used for different purposes in geosciences research. This research presents an overview of the preliminary evaluation results of the new Earth Gravitation Model (EGM08) in the middle of Iraq. For completeness, the evaluation tests were also performed for EGM96 by examining 31 stations distributed over four Iraqi provinces. The national orthometric heights were compared with the GPS /leveling data obtained from these stations. This study illustrated that the GPS /leveling based on EGM
... Show MoreThe study area, Tlul Al-Baj, suffers from a shortage of fresh water and most people depend on groundwater for different uses (drinking, domestic, irrigation, etc.).
The present research aims to select the most suitable wells for desalination and production of potable water in Tlul Al-Baj area.
Twenty-two samples of groundwater were collected to evaluate the hydrochemical properties of groundwater in the shallow aquifer in the area and to determine their suitability for desalination purposes. The study included measuring the physicochemical characteristics of groundwater, such as total hardness (TH), total dissolved solids(TDS), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), sodium ratio (Na%), turbidity (Tur), pH…etc. Chemical anal
... Show MoreDue to the significance of hospital drinking water, a study was done to assess the water in three hospitals in Baghdad (Al-Yarmouk Teaching Hospital, Ibn Sina Hospital, and Ibn-Al-Nafis Hospital) for its nature and quality, compare it to other hospitals in terms of its physical, chemical, and bacterial specifications, and compare it to international standards. According to Iraqi standards from 2009 and WHO standards from 2011, Chemical factors were measured, which included pH, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), and Calcium Ion (Ca+2). Reported readings are all within acceptable ranges for drinking water. In contrast, turbidity, total hardness (T.H.), chlorides (Cl-), magnesium (Mg+2), the number of aerobic plates (APC), total coliform (T
... Show MoreStable isotopes 18O/16O and 13C/12C in the carbonate rocks of the Mishrif Formation are examined here to define the depositional characters in the basin includes paleo temperatures and paleo depth.
The Mishrif formation (Cenomanian – Early Turonian) has extensive distribution in Iraq and Middle East. Mishrif Formation composed of organic detrital limestone. Four boreholes in four oilfields, Noor – well (11), Amarah – well (14), Buzurgan – well (24), Halfaya – well (8), in south east of Iraq have been studied.
The studied samples have negative δ18O isotope values studied well, with Average (-4.11‰), (
... Show MoreStable isotopes 18O/16O and 13C/12C in the carbonate rocks of the Mishrif Formation are examined here to define the depositional characters in the basin includes paleo temperatures and paleo depth. The Mishrif formation (Cenomanian – Early Turonian) has extensive distribution in Iraq and Middle East. Mishrif Formation composed of organic detrital limestone. Four boreholes in four oilfields, Noor – well (11), Amarah – well (14), Buzurgan – well (24), Halfaya – well (8), in south east of Iraq have been studied. The studied samples have negative δ18O isotope values studied well, with Average (-4.11‰), (-4.47‰), (-4.48‰), (-4.18‰) in the studied wells res
... Show MoreThe solar energy is the major source of power for the future and an important source of renewable energy in Iraq and the world. Suitable climate conditions for solar energy are available in Iraq, especially the high temperature in the summer season which extends for more than six months in the year. Hence, the global solar radiation is abundant with high intensity, which is very essential in applicable models for researchers and solar applications. Therefore, nine first-order regression empirical equations of Angstrom-type correlations were used to estimate the more appropriate global solar radiation model for Baghdad city. Two equations were developed empirically in this work, using the most available and easy to get meteorological data
... Show MoreAnumerical solutions is presented to investigate the effect of inclination angle (θ) , perforation ratio (m) and wall temperature of the plate (Tw) on the heat transfer in natural convection from isothermal square flat plate up surface heated (with and without concentrated hole). The flat plate with dimensions of (128 mm) length × (64 mm) width has been used five with square models of the flat plate that gave a rectangular perforation of (m=0.03, 0.06, 0.13, 0.25, 0.5). The values of angle of inclination were (0o, 15o 30o 45o 60o) from horizontal position and the values of wall temperature (50oC, 60 oC, 70 oC, 90 oC, 100o<
... Show MoreKirchhoff Time migration was applied in Pre and Post-Stack for 2D seismic survey for line AJ-99N, that is located in Ajeel oilfield in Salah Al-Din Governorate, Central Iraq. The process follows several accurate steps to reach the final time migration stage. The results of applied time migration give an accurate image for the Ajeel anticline reservoir and to improve the signal to noise ratio. Pre-Stack shows a clearer image for the structure in the study area, and the time-frequency analysis insure the result.
Ceruloplasmin is considered the main copper transport protein which is proposed to have a role in cancer. Ceruloplasmin is an acute phase reactant and antioxidant enzyme, has been found to be increased in sera of patients with several types of cancers including breast cancer.
The aim of present study was to determine of ceruloplasmin oxidase activity, specific activity, iron concentration in sera of patients with breast cancer and comparing with healthy group, and the ability of using enzyme as a tumor marker for breast cancer.
This study was performed from November 2018 to January 2019, blood samples were collected from breast cancer patients in Nanakeli Hospital in Erbil city. Study was included (65) female patients wit
... Show MoreThe red palm weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier, 1790), which belongs to the family Curculionidae, order Coleoptera, is one of the most important palm pests, which leads to heavy losses in date palms. In the last few years, it has been recorded in Iraq, from Safwan city south of Iraq, where it was detected on date palm trees (Phoenix dactylifera L, Arecales: Arecaceae). In the current study, specimens of adult weevils were collected from infested date palms (Phoenix dactylifera), that showed signs of infection in Safwan district, south of Basra province. The results of the investigation showed the presence of phoretic mites associated with the red palm weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier,
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