This investigation pertains to the evaluation of water quality in SAWA Lake, located in the Al-Muthanna province of Southern Iraq, from 1977 to 2020. Understanding the water quality and assessments of this Lake is of great importance. The Lake is home to small, transparent, blind fish measuring approximately 10 cm and is often referred to as the "wonderful" or "strange" Lake due to its many unique features. The study focuses on several elements to represent water quality, including total dissolved solids (TDS), electrical conductivity (EC), pH, and temperature (T), which were measured directly in the field. Additionally, scientific concepts such as K⁺, Ca²⁺, Cl^-, HCO

Sawa Lake is considered one of the distinct closed water systems located in the southwestern part of Iraq. In last years, the lake has suffered from a significant decrease in the water depth reached 1.5 m, thus the current study aims to monitor and analyse the change in water level, and identify causes and effect of this change on the lake hydrochemical properties by using analyzing cations and anions with the assistance of sub bottom profilers technique as well as obtained information from scientific diving.

     The results revealed that the lake had an equilibrium state between feed up and withdrawal water as well as evaporation during history.  In spite of the high evaporation rates in the region, thi

Heavy metal contamination comprises a great concern in the environment. A magnetic study combined with heavy metal analyses was performed in the Sawa Lake in Al-Muthanna governorate (southern Iraq). Concentrations of selected heavy metals (Cr, Fe, Ni, As and Pb) have been measured and magnetic susceptibility (χ) of sediment samples collected from the lake bottom was calculated.

The results confirmed that a cement plant, which is located less than two kilometers away from the lake has no contamination levels on the lake’s sediments. No enhancement in the magnetic susceptibility was observed. X-ray florescence (XRF) was performed for heavy metal analyses.

Spatial variations of χ with the mean value of 4.58 x

Sawa Lake is one of the unique lakes in Iraq. It is located in the southwestern part of Iraq. It is one of the closed lakes, as no surface water source works to feed the lake. The lake feeds on groundwater. The source of this groundwater is the Dammam Basin. During the past ten years, The lake has had many changes, which led to a decrease in water levels. This also led attention to study of the causes of these changes. Many types of research were presented in the study of the state of the lake. This research used remote sensing images from Landsat 8 OLI to monitor the changes during 2020-2021 by applying the NDWI equation to extract water area from image data. The results of the areas were obtained from a special report by Normalized Dif

      One of the serious environmental challenges that Iraq faces is climate changes and impacts of changing weather patterns and extreme global weather events. This paper addresses changes in the temporal and spatial characteristics of water levels of Razzaza Lake and response to climatic changes using archived series of Multispectral satellite images Landsat. TM, ETM+ and OLI images acquired on 1990, 2000 and of 2016. In order to extract, mapping the water surface area of the Razzaza Lake, Multispectral spectral band rationing the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) technique was adopted, and the climatic elements data for the period (1990-2016) were analyzed which provide significant information of surfac

Water pollution is an issue that can be exacerbated by drought as increased concentrations of unwanted substances are a consequence of lower water levels. Polluted water that flows into natural marshlands leads to the deposition of pollutants in the interior of the marsh. Here we present evidence that the interior of the Central Marsh (CM) in southern Iraq suffers from higher levels of pollution than areas closer to the source of water entering the marsh (the Euphrates River). A 1.7m embankment that halts the flow of the Euphrates is only infrequently breached and so the CM is effectively the terminal destination of the waters (and their associated pollutants and agricultural waste) flowing from the West of Iraq.

A range of water

    This work has been accomplished through a dense field work on the Sawa Lake. The aim of this work is to highlight on characteristics that are consistent with outstanding universal values to be a new Iraqi site belongs to the World Natural Heritage. This study sorted many unique characteristics might ensure that Sawa Lake as a world natural heritage sites. This study shows that the lake had met four natural criteria of the outstanding universal values: (1) the seventh criterion which states to contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance. (2) The eighth criterion which stated to be outstanding example representing major stages of earth's history, including the rec