Climate change and future challenges to the sustainable management of the Iraqi marshlands

Ala Hassan Nama; Imzahim A Alwan; Quoc Bao Pham

doi:10.1007/s10661-023-12168-8

Climate change and future challenges to the sustainable management of the Iraqi marshlands

Environ Monit Assess. 2023 Dec 13;196(1):35. doi: 10.1007/s10661-023-12168-8.

Authors

Ala Hassan Nama¹, Imzahim A Alwan², Quoc Bao Pham³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Water Resources Engineering, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq.
² Civil Engineering Department, University of Technology, Baghdad, 10066, Iraq.
³ Faculty of Natural Sciences, Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Silesia in Katowice, Będzińska Street 60, 41-200, Sosnowiec, Poland. quoc_bao.pham@us.edu.pl.

Abstract

The application of restoration plans for the Iraqi marshlands is encountering significant challenges due to water scarcity and the impacts of climate change. This paper assesses the impact of water scarcity on the possibility of continuing the application of restoration and sustainable management plans for the main marshlands in Iraq. This assessment was conducted based on the available data and expected situation of available water resources under climate change conditions until the year 2035. Additionally, a satellite image-based index model was prepared and applied for the period 2009-2020 to obtain the spatiotemporal distribution of the restored marshlands. The results show that the shortage in water resources and insufficient inundation rates prevented the adequate application of the restoration plans. Also, applying the scenarios of distributing the deficit equally over all water demand sectors (S1) and according to the percentage of demand for each sector (S2) shows that the expected deficit in available water for the three marshes by the years 2025 and 2035 will be approximately 25% and 32% for S1 and 9% for S2. Consequently, the considered marshes are expected to lose approximately 20 to 33% of their eligible restoration areas. Accordingly, looking for suitable alternatives to support the water resources of these marshes became a very urgent matter and/or recourse to reduce the areas targeted by inundation and being satisfied with the areas that can be sustainable and maintain the current status of the rest of the regions as an emerging ecosystem characterized by lands that are inundated every few years. Accordingly, steps must be urged to develop plans and programs to maintain the sustainability of these emerging ecosystems within the frameworks of climate change and the conditions of scarcity of water resources and water and air pollution to ensure that they are not lost in the future.

Keywords: Climate change; Inundation rates; Iraqi marshlands; Restoration plans; Sustainability of ecosystem.

MeSH terms

Climate Change*
Ecosystem*
Environmental Monitoring
Iraq
Water

Substances

Water