This was published 19 years ago
Scientists hope to turn back tide of destruction in Iraqi marshes
The marshes of Mesopotamia, thought by some biblical scholars to be the site of the Garden of Eden, could be restored, scientists say.
Originally twice the size of the Florida Everglades, the marshes were extensively drained by Saddam Hussein's regime.
Home to fish, millions of wading and migrating birds and a 5000-year-old Marsh Arab culture based on artificial islands and houses made from tall reeds, they lie at the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. They were reduced to just 7 per cent of their original extent of nearly 13,000 square kilometres during Saddam's rule.
"This environmental disaster has been compared in scale to the drying up of the Aral Sea in central Asia and to the deforestation of the Amazon," Curtis Richardson, of Duke University, North Carolina, and colleagues report in the journal Science.
But the remaining marshland showed surprising resilience. "The high quality of the water, the existing soil conditions and the presence of stocks of native species in some regions indicate that the restoration potential for a significant portion of the Mesopotamian marshes is high."
Researchers moved into the marshes and began working with Iraqi scientists after US and British forces toppled Saddam.
Much of the marshland had been drained and turned over to wheat. Water upstream was dammed or diverted for irrigation. Soil, normally washed clean of pollutants each spring by the flow of meltwater from the Iranian and Turkish mountains, became poisoned by the build-up of salt.
Up to 100,000 Marsh Arabs were killed by Saddam's soldiers. Whole villages were moved, some many times, and tens of thousands settled in refugee camps in Iran. In a region where rainfall is 10 centimetres a year and evaporation rates 500 centimetres a year, 90 per cent of the marshes began to turn seemingly inexorably to desert.
After the defeat of Saddam and the occupation of Baghdad, uncontrolled releases of water from the rivers, combined with high rainfall, reflooded 20 per cent of the marshes.
Scientists backed by the US Agency for International Development, working with limited funds, began to examine selected areas of the remaining natural marsh. They found saltpans, baked mudflats, areas of scrub - and flooded regions with luxuriant vegetation and returning populations of marbled teal, pelicans, pygmy cormorants and the otter species lutra lutra.
A CSIRO researcher, Rob Fitzpatrick, who led the soil science program for the marshlands restoration study, said his expedition to the region last year was an incredible experience personally and scientifically.
The drained and burned sections were the worst examples of land degradation he had seen but "there were also some very beautiful places", he said.
His team was excited to be the first to study a landscape that was new to science, with soils transformed by fierce fires.
Draining of the wetlands had also exposed ancient soils that had been produced by the decay of thousands of years' worth of vegetation. "We ended up finding a whole range of new minerals and new processes going on in the system, and new soil types," he said.
Dr Fitzpatrick, of CSIRO Land and Water in Adelaide, said there had been fears the marshlands could disappear entirely by 2008. His trip to Iraq was postponed several times for security reasons before going ahead last February.
The future of the area would depend directly on the quantity of water, he said. "Turkey and Iran control a tremendous amount ... Turkey could cut off almost all of the flow of the Euphrates."
He added: "Inside, the country is basically fighting for water for cities, for agriculture. So, essentially, the marshes' water has been moved north."
The Guardian