Devastated by the combined impact of massive drainage works and upstream damming since the 1980's, Al-Hammar Marsh, Southern Iraq, has completely collapsed with 94 % of its land cover transformed into bare land and salt crusts by 2000. After a policy initiated to restore the Iraqi marshes again in 2003, the marsh recovered about half of its former area. As a part of the ecological recovery assessment of this newly inundated marsh, it is important to investigate the extend impact of desiccation after 3 years of inundation on water quality as the latter plays an important role in the restoration process of the marshes. Therefore, from a restoration point of view, major and trace element distribution and sourcing as well as seasonal variations were studied in the re-flooded marsh of Al-Hammar. First, the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index [1] analyses applied revealed threatened or impaired water quality and conditions in the marsh that depart from natural or desirable levels. Second, multivariate statistical techniques such as Agglomerative Hierarchal Cluster Analyses (AHCA) that were used to analyze the data and identify the possible sources of water pollution in the marsh indicated that some elements such as Ca, SO4, Mg, TDS, Cl, Na, Co, and Ni are associated with natural sourcing while other elements such as Cd, Zn, Pb, and turbidity indicated a possible anthropogenic sourcing. Third, seasonal variations investigation displayed that the water quality is affected by natural seasonal processes such as evaporation and rainfall as well as biological activities. Dry season exhibited an increase in TDS, Ca, Mg, Na, Cl, SO4, and Cd due to the concentration by evaporation during the season compared to the dilution by rainfall during the wet season. In contrast, BOD and DO levels showed a considerable decrease in dry season owing to the poor water ability to hold oxygen at high temperature as a result of higher rate of microbial metabolism.
A survey conducted at Dalmaj marsh, Al-Diwaniya Province during 2013 revealed that the marsh encounters a considerable part of the Iraqi vertebrate fauna including 147 species belonging to five classes; Pisces, Amphibia, Reptilia, Aves and Mammalia. Some species are of globally conservation importance. The present results are discussed with the pertinent literature.
This study is concerned with the identification of the validity of the Recent sediments deposited in the Playa for the purpose of making the laboratory bricks by extrusion and pressing. The steps followed in this study included the formation and then burning of the pyramids at (950-1100) C° for one hour of maturity to determine their applicability to the brick industry. The study area is located in Al Muthanna province, south of Iraq. It is located south of the district of Samawah at a distance of 80 km and to the north-west of Salman district, 64 kilometers south of Baghdad, represented by three hosts: (DHS 1, DH2 and S). The results of the chemical analysis of the study samples showed that they consist of the following major oxides: S
... Show MoreThis study covers the area bounded by latitudes 29° to 34° N and longitudes 39° to 48°E.The seismicity of area for the period 1980–2011 is evaluated. In this study the geological and topography were performed, regarding the historical seismicity. More than (145) events were re-analyzed in Iraqi Seismological Network (ISN) and the recorded data was subjected to statistical analysis. This study shows high activity in the east and very low activity in the west.
The aim of this study is to the evaluation of the general hydrogeology condition of the Al-Khassa sub-basin area. Pumping test has been done for five wells in the area. The hydrogeological characteristics (transmissivity, hydraulic conductivity and storage coefficient) were determined in the area by input data which obtained from the pumping test process into the (AquiferWin32, Version 5) software program. The data were analyzed using Copper-Jacob, Theis and Hantuosh methods for pumping, the values of hydraulic characteristics range from: transmissivity (0.98 to 19.57) m²/day in (W7-W9-W10-W12) sites and 416 m²/day in W1, hydraulic conductivity (0.051 to 0.305) m/day in (W7-W9-W10-W12) sites and 5.012 m/day in W1, storage coefficie
... Show MoreAl Huweizah Marsh is considered as the largest marsh at the southern part of Iraq. About one third of the marsh is located within the Iranian territory. Iran began to construct earth dikes along the Iraqi-Iranian international borders to separate the Iranian part of the marsh. The electrical conductivity, EC, value was adopted to be the indicator for the water salinity within the marsh. A steady two-dimensional water quality routing model was implemented by using the RMA2 and RMA4 softwares within the SMS computer package to estimate the distribution of the
EC values within the marsh seasonally during the wet, moderate and dry water years. The EC distribution Patterns were estimated considering the expected two cases of the marsh futu
Most marshes in Iraq face several challenges as aquatic environments, including pollution by various chemical agents and heavy metals. The current study deal with an analysis of the water quality of Dalmaj marsh as one of the closed aquatic environments in the middle parts of Iraq located between latitudes 32ᵒ 05′ to 32ᵒ 23′N and longitudes 45ᵒ 10′ to 45ᵒ 38′ E. The marsh is suffering from a shortage in water supply, especially during the summer. It will lead to a concentration of heavy metals that are washed and transported to the marsh from the surrounding watersheds through surface runoff. This work aims to analyze water and fish samples to assess heavy metals and their accumulated risk in fish tissues based on
... Show MoreTotal of 170 samples were collected from Al-Chibayish Marsh reality in Dhi-Qar governorate southern of Iraq to study the epidemology of viral hepatitis in these areas and to detect the type of hepatitis viruses which include A ,B,C,D .The percentage of hepatitis A was 1.17% and most of them below age of ?10 (66.6%) while infection with hepatitis B account 5.29% and includes all age groups. There was no detected cases of hepatitis C,D. The laboratory study showed that the incidence of hepatitis B higher in male (4.11%) compared to female ( 2.35%)
Global warming is the scientific evidence that air temperatures the near surface of Earth are rising, and that higher temperatures threaten dangerous consequences earth such as drought, disease, floods, lost ecosystems. This aim of this research is analyzed the monthly means of daily values of air temperature in Iraq for the period of 1979 to 2010 by using GIS techniques. Data were obtained from the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The initial diagnosis showed that there is no significant increase of maximum values of the mean temperature for the four parts( northern, central, western, and southern ) of Iraq for the four seasons so we compared the area of maximum value of mean temperature which covered it and t
... Show MoreThe Eurasian marsh frog Pelophylax ridibundus is a widespread species in Iraq. Examination of intestine of 25 marsh frogs collected in Al-Diwaniya city, middle of Iraq during the period from September to November 2014 revealed the presence of Nematotaenia dispar (Cestoda), Cosmocerca commutata and Cosmocercoides variabilis (Nematoda). Infection rates and intensity have been presented in this paper.
Physicochemical characteristics of groundwater in AL-Miqdadiyah town were studied by taking random water samples from six differents wells from July to December 2010. The results were compared with the international standards for drinking-water of WHO and FAO and the iraqian limits . Fourteen parameters were analysed. It was found that most of studied wells waters in the allowed limits for drinking water . Except W1 & W2 which had the hight values of turbidity during summer season only . The present study showed clear differents between winter & summer values in (turbidity , TDS , Cl- , NO2 and Na) . While the remaining characteristics showed exigu
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