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.
An electrical survey was carried out by using 2D imaging technique at (15)
station. The study area is located southern Al-Shihaby area, south-east of Wasit
governorate, Eastern Iraq. The numbers of the employed electrodes were (120) and
the (a) spacing equal to (10m), and the total length of survey line is (1200m). The
inverse models of 2D imaging showed one Quaternary aquifer located in the
Quaternary deposits which comprises in alluvial fan and wind deposits of
(Pleistocene – Holocene) ages. Layers of aquifer consist of gravel and sand with
little silt. Low resistivity values reflected the presence of clay layers, and increasing
salinity of water gradually with the depth. The aquifer occurs at minimum depth
The current study aims to show the importance of plant products as mosquitocides against Culex quinquefasciatus. Castor oil Nanoemulsions were subedit in various ratios including castor oil, ethanol, tween 80, and deionized water by using ultrasonication. Thermodynamic, centrifugation, PH, assay which improved that the formula of 10 ml of castor oil, ethanol 5ml, tween 80 (14 ml) and deionized water 71ml was more stable than other formulas. The stable formula of castor oil nanoemulsion was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS). Nanoemulsion droplets were spherical in shape and were found to have a Z-average diameter of 87.4nm. A concentration of ca
... Show More
(2)
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
... Show More
(4)
(2)
Geodiversity is the variety within abiotic natural elements that include: rocks, minerals, landforms, soil types, and water resources. Recently ecologists and naturalists recognized that there is close relationship between geodiversity and ecosystems. Huwaiza marsh is located south eastern Iraq within Lower Mesopotamian plain. The main rock bed units which crop out north east of the studied area comprises many types of rocks: conglomerate, sandstone, mudstone, siltstone and claystone belong to Bai Hassan, Mukdadiya and Injana Formations. The general elevation of the area ranges around 5 meters (a. s. l.) near the marsh and increase northeast to more than 100 meters (a. s. l.) and the Land forms are: cuesta, oxbow lakes
... Show More
(12)
(5)
The Umm Al-Naaj Marsh was chosen in Maysan province, and it is one of the sections of Mar Al-Hawza, which is one of the most prominent Iraqi marshes in the south. The marshes are located between latitudes 30 35 and 32 45 latitudes and longitudes 13 46 and 48 00. The area of the study area is 76479.432142 hectares to evaluate soil quality and health index and their spatial distribution based on measuring physical, chemical, biological and fertility traits and calculating the total quality index for those characteristics. Using an auger drilling machine, we collected 50 randomly selected surface samples, evenly distributed across the study region, from Al-Aq 0.0–0.30 m, noting their precise locations along the way. Soil health and quality w
... Show More
(2)
The detailed data of the Vp/Vs ratio and porosity logs were used to detect the Oil-Water Contact Zone (OWCZ) of Nahr Umr sandstone and Mishrif limestone reservoir formations in Kumiat (Kt) and Dujaila (Du) oil fields, southeastern Iraq. The results of OWC were confirmed using P-wave, Resistivity, and Water Saturation (Sw) logs of Kt-1 and Du-1 wells. It was found that the values of the oil-water contact zone thickness in Nahr Umr sandstone and Mishrif limestone were approximately one meter and eight meters, respectively. These results suggest that the OWCZ is possibly thicker in the carbonate rock than clastic rock formations. The thickness of OWCZ in the clastic rocks changed from one part to another, depending on several factors includ
... Show More
The study attempts to assess water quality in Abu-Zirig Marsh which used epiphytic Diatom community for assessing water quality. Many of Diatom indices {Trophic diatom index (TDI), Diatom index (DI), Generic diatom index (GDI) have been used to give qualitative information about the status of the freshwater ecosystem(good, moderate, high pollution). In this study, the epiphytic diatoms on both host aquatic plants Phragmites australis and Typha domengensis were collected from Abu-Zirig Marsh within Thi-Qar Province at three sites in Autumn, 2018 and winter, 2019. Epiphytic diatoms were Identified by the preparation of permanent slides method, some species of epiphytic diatom showed dominance such as Cyclotella menegh
... Show More
(5)
In this study, lateral groundwater inflow was examined, according to the phenomena of groundwater mixing, groundwater flow and groundwater chemistry. The study region is composed of different aquifer systems; including karst-fracture media (Rattga-Jeed carbonates aquifer), fissure–porous media (Mullusi, Mullusi-Ubaid, Hartha-Rutba, and Digma-Tayarat aquifers) and porous media (Permo-carboniferous clastics rocks of Ga’ra aquifer).The aquifers are vertically super-imposed or of lateral contacts make open hydraulic connection between aquifers system. There is a severe shortage of water resources in the region because of rare precipitation and strong evapotranspiration. These conditions have hampered eco-environm
... Show More
The marshes are one of the important environmental features affecting human and animal systems, so the studying of changes they undergo is one of the important topics. This study is concerned with the changes occurring in the Al Saadya marsh for the period from 1987 to 2017 exclusively in the winter season (the marshes’ revival season in Iraq revive). In order to inspect the changes in this marsh, we choose 7 years to cover the study period as a criterion years, namely 1987, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2007, 2014 and 2017. The “Maximum Likelihood” classifier was used to separate the stacked land cover features, where the minimum overall accuracy ratio that recorded for all years of study was 96%. The results revealed that Al-Saadya marsh went t
... Show More