Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Changes in Mesopotamian Wetlands: Investigations Using Diverse Remote Sensing Datasets

  • Wetland Hydrology and Geomorphology
  • Published:
Wetlands Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Early civilizations have inhabited areas with stable water resources that supported living needs and activities. The Mesopotamian marshes have experienced dramatic changes during the past five decades. The aim of this study is to observe, analyse and report the extent of changes in these marshes from 1972 to 2020. Data from various sources were acquired through Google Earth Engine (GEE) including climate variables, land cover, surface reflectance, and surface water occurrence collections. Additionally, streamflow data was also analysed. Methods were based on diagnostic analysis to monitor and evaluate the causes and results of the total environmental dynamism. Results show a clear wetlands dynamism over time, a decrease of incoming flow to the region due to the damming of upstream tributaries, and a significant loss in marshlands extent, even though no significant long-term change was observed in lumped rainfall from 1982, and even during periods where no meteorological drought had been recorded. Human interventions have disturbed the ecosystems, which is evident when studying water occurrence changes. These show that the diversion of rivers and the building of a new drainage system caused the migration and spatiotemporal changes of marshlands. Nonetheless, restoration plans (after 2003) and strong wet conditions (period 2018–2020) have helped to recover the ecosystems, these have not led the marshlands to regain their former extent. Further studies should pay more attention to the drainage network within the study area as well as the neighbouring regions and their impact on the streamflow that feeds the marshes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8

(Source: Ministry of Water Resources, Iraqi Government n.d.)

Fig. 9
Fig. 10

Similar content being viewed by others

Data Availability

All datasets used are publicly available.

Code Availability

Not applicable.

References

  • Abdulnaby W, Motaghi K, Shabanian E, Mahdi H, Al-Shukri H, Gök R (2020) Crustal structure of the Mesopotamian Plain, east of Iraq. Tectonics :e2020TC006225

  • Abed JM (2007) Status of water birds in restored southern Iraqi marshes. Marsh Bulletin 2(1):64–79

    Google Scholar 

  • Abusch T (2020) Witches and demons in ancient Mesopotamia. In: Further Studies on Mesopotamian Witchcraft Beliefs and Literature. Brill, Leiden, pp 3–18. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004421912_002

  • Adamo N, Al-Ansari N, Sissakian V (2020) How dams can affect freshwater issues in the Euphrates-Tigris basins. Journal of Earth Sciences Geotechnical Engineering 10(1):15–48

    Google Scholar 

  • Ahram AI (2015) Development, counterinsurgency, and the destruction of the Iraqi marshes. Int J Middle East Stud 47(3):447–466

  • Al-Ansari N, Knutsson S, Ali A (2012) Restoring the Garden of Eden, Iraq. Journal of Earth Sciences Geotechnical Engineering 2(1):53–88

    Google Scholar 

  • Albarakat R, Lakshmi V (2019) Comparison of normalized difference vegetation index derived from Landsat, MODIS, and AVHRR for the Mesopotamian marshes between 2002 and 2018. Remote Sensing 11(10):1245

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Albarakat R, Lakshmi V, Tucker CJ (2018) Using satellite remote sensing to study the impact of climate and anthropogenic changes in the Mesopotamian Marshlands. Iraq Remote Sensing 10(10):1524. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10101524

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Al-Handal A, Hu C (2015) MODIS observations of human-induced changes in the Mesopotamian Marshes in Iraq. Wetlands 35(1):31–40

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Al-Hilli MR, Warner BG, Asada T, Douabul A (2009) An assessment of vegetation and environmental controls in the 1970s of the Mesopotamian wetlands of southern Iraq. Wetlands Ecology and Management 17(3):207–223

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allan JA (2012) The Middle East Water Question: Hydropolitics and the Global Economy, London. ISBN 1860648134

  • Allen RG, Pereira LS, Raes D, Smith M (1998) Crop evapotranspiration-Guidelines for computing crop water requirements. FAO Irrigation and drainage paper 56. FAO, Rome, 300(9):D05109

  • Al-Nasrawi AK (2018) Estuarine geomorphodynamic assessment of environmental change and stressor impacts: a geographic information systems and remote sensing (geoinformatics) modelling approach for sustainable management of southeast Australian coastal ecosystems. PhD, University of Wollongong, Wollongong

  • Al-Nasrawi AK, Jones BG, Alyazichi YM, Hamylton SM, Jameel MT, Hammadi AF (2016) Civil-GIS incorporated approach for water resource management in a developed catchment for urban-geomorphic sustainability: Tallowa Dam, southeastern Australia. International Soil Water Conservation Research 4(4):304–313

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Al-Quraishi AK, Kaplan DA (2021) Connecting changes in Euphrates River flow to hydropattern of the Western Mesopotamian Marshes. Science of The Total Environment 768:144445

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Al-Zaidy KJ, Parisi G, Abed SA, Salim MA (2019) Classification of the key functional diversity of the marshes of southern Iraq Marshes. In: Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1294(7): 072021. IOP Publishing

  • Asokan A, Anitha J (2019) Change detection techniques for remote sensing applications: a survey. Earth Science Informatics 12(2):143–160

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ault TR (2020) On the essentials of drought in a changing climate. Science 368(6488):256–260

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Banister KE (1980) The fishes of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Euphrates and Tigris, Mesopotamian Ecology and Destiny, vol 38. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 95–108. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9171-2_9

  • Bayazit M, Önöz B (2007) To prewhiten or not to prewhiten in trend analysis? Hydrological Sciences Journal 52(4):611–624. https://doi.org/10.1623/hysj.52.4.611

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bergen KM, Dronova I (2007) Observing succession on aspen-dominated landscapes using a remote sensing-ecosystem approach. Landscape Ecology 22(9):1395–1410

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bobbink R, Whigham DF, Beltman B, Verhoeven JT (2006) Wetland functioning in relation to biodiversity conservation and restoration. In: Bobbink R et al (eds) Wetlands: Functioning, biodiversity conservation, and restoration. Springer, Berlin, pp 1–12

  • Chen L, Wang L (2018) Recent advance in earth observation big data for hydrology. Big Earth Data 2(1):86–107

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cookson E, Hill DJ, Lawrence D (2019) Impacts of long term climate change during the collapse of the Akkadian Empire. Journal of Archaeological Science 106:1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2019.03.009

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davidson NC, Dinesen L, Fennessy S, Finlayson CM, Grillas P et al (2019) A review of the adequacy of reporting to the Ramsar Convention on change in the ecological character of wetlands. Marine Freshwater Research 71(1):117–126

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DeFries RS, Townshend JR (1994) NDVI-derived land cover classifications at a global scale. International Journal of Remote Sensing 15(17):3567–3586

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drusch M, Del Bello U, Carlier S, Colin O, Fernandez V, Gascon F, Hoersch B, Isola C, Laberinti P, Martimort P, Meygret A (2012) Sentinel-2: ESA’s optical high-resolution mission for GMES operational services. Remote sensing of Environment 120:25–36

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Faiella G (2006) The Technology of Mesopotamia. Rosen Publishing Group, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Foga S, Scaramuzza PL, Guo S, Zhu Z, Dilley RD Jr et al (2017) Cloud detection algorithm comparison and validation for operational Landsat data products. Remote Sensing of Environment 194:379–390

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frankfort H (1950) Town planning in ancient Mesopotamia. The Town Planning Review 21(2):99–115

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuentes I, Padarian J, Van Ogtrop F, Vervoort RW (2019) Spatiotemporal evaluation of inundated areas using MODIS imagery at a catchment scale. Journal of Hydrology 573:952–963

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuentes I, van Ogtrop F, Vervoort RW (2020) Long-term surface water trends and relationship with open water evaporation losses in the Namoi catchment, Australia. Journal of Hydrology 584:124714

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Funk C, Peterson P, Landsfeld M, Pedreros D, Verdin J, Shukla S, Husak G, Rowland J, Harrison L, Hoell A, Michaelsen J (2015) The climate hazards infrared precipitation with stations—a new environmental record for monitoring extremes. Scientific Data 2:150066

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Gorelick N, Hancher M, Dixon M, Ilyushchenko S, Thau D et al (2017) Google Earth Engine: planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone. Remote Sensing of Environment 202:18–27

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guenang GM, Kamga FM (2014) Computation of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and its use to assess drought occurrences in cameroon over recent decades. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 53:2310–2324. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-14-0032.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hamdan MA, Asada T, Hassan FM, Warner BG, Douabul A et al (2010) Vegetation response to re-flooding in the Mesopotamian Wetlands, southern Iraq. Wetlands 30:177–188

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hamman E, Van Geelen T, Akhtar-Khavari A (2019) Governance tools for the conservation of wetlands: the role of the Montreux Record under the Ramsar Convention. Marine Freshwater Research 70(11):1493–1502

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hamzeh S, Akbari E, Kakroodi A, Jeihooni M (2017) Investigation the dynamic response of the Anzali lagoon to sea-level changes using multi-sources remotely sensed data. The 38th Asian Conference on Remote Sensing. New Delhi

  • Hashim BM, Sultan MA, Attyia MN, Al Maliki AA, Al-Ansari N (2019) Change detection and impact of climate changes to Iraqi southern marshes using Landsat 2 Mss, Landsat 8 Oli and sentinel 2 Msi data and Gis applications. Applied Sciences 9(10):2016. https://doi.org/10.3390/app9102016

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huffman GJ, Stocker EF, Bolvin DT, Nelkin EJ, Jackson T (2019) GPM IMERG Final Precipitation L3 1 month 0.1 degree x 0.1 degree V06, Greenbelt, MD, Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). https://doi.org/10.5067/GPM/IMERG/3B-MONTH/06Accessed: 2021-21-04

  • Jabbar MFA, Al-Ma’amar AF, Shehab AT (2010) Change detections in marsh areas, south Iraq, using remote sensing and GIS applications. Iraqi Bulletin of Geology Mining 6(2):17–39

    Google Scholar 

  • Jotheri J, Altaweel M, Tuji A, Anma R, Pennington B et al (2018) Holocene fluvial and anthropogenic processes in the region of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia. Quaternary International 483:57–69

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan G, Avdan U (2018) Monthly analysis of wetlands dynamics using remote sensing data. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information 7(10):411

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karthikeyan L, Chawla I, Mishra AK (2020) A review of remote sensing applications in agriculture for food security: Crop growth and yield, irrigation, and crop losses. Journal of Hydrology 586:124905

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kerr RA (1998) Sea-floor dust shows drought felled Akkadian Empire. Science 279(5349):325–326

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kohl PL, Lyonnet B (1826) By land and by sea: the circulation of materials and peoples, ca. 3500 – 1800 BC. BAR International Series 2008:29–42

  • Kuzucuoğlu C (2007) Climatic and environmental trends during the third millennium BC in Upper Mesopotamia. Publications de l’Institut Français d’Études Anatoliennes, 19(1):459–480

  • Lawler A (2005) Reviving Iraq’s wetlands. Science 307(5713):1186–1189. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.307.5713.1186

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Madani K (2014) Water management in Iran: what is causing the looming crisis? Journal of Environmental Studies Sciences 4(4):315–328

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maisels CK (2001) Early Civilizations of the Old World: the Formative Histories of Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, India and China. Psychology Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Maltby E, Acreman MC (2011) Ecosystem services of wetlands: pathfinder for a new paradigm. Hydrological Sciences Journal 56(8):1341–1359

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McNally A, Arsenault K, Kumar S, Shukla S, Peterson P et al (2017) A land data assimilation system for sub-Saharan Africa food and water security applications. Scientific Data 4(1):1–19

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ministry of Water Resources (2013) Hydrography database, shapefile feature class, GIS workstation, state commission of survey (SCS). Iraqi Government

  • Mitsch W, Gosselink J (1993) Wetlands 2nd edition. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Naddafi R, Abdoli A, Hassanzadeh Kiabi B, Mojazi Amiri B, Karami M (2005) Age, growth and reproduction of the Caspian roach (Rutilus rutilus caspicus) in the Anzali and Gomishan wetlands, North Iran. Journal of Applied Ichthyology 21(6):492–497

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Najafi A, Vatanfada J (2011) Environmental challenges in trans-boundary waters, case study: Hamoon Hirmand Wetland (Iran and Afghanistan). International Journal of Water Resources Arid Environments 1(1):16–24

    Google Scholar 

  • Ochsenschlager EL (2004) Iraq’s Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden. UPenn Museum of Archaeology, Philadelphia

  • Olsen AR, Kincaid TM, Kentula ME, Weber MH (2019) Survey design to assess condition of wetlands in the United States. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 191(1):1–6

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ozesmi SL, Bauer ME (2002) Satellite remote sensing of wetlands. Wetlands ecology management 10(5):381–402

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Partow H (2001) The Mesopotamian marshlands: demise of an ecosystem. Early Warning and Assessment Technical Report, UNEP/DEWA/TR.01–3 Rev. 1, Division of Early Warning and Assessment, United Nations Environment Programme. Nairobi, Kenya

  • Pastick NJ, Jorgenson MT, Goetz SJ, Jones BM, Wylie BK, Minsley BJ, Genet H, Knight JF, Swanson DK, Jorgenson JC (2019) Spatiotemporal remote sensing of ecosystem change and causation across Alaska. Global Change Biology 25(3):1171–1189

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pekel JF, Cottam A, Gorelick N, Belward A (2016) High-resolution mapping of global surface water and its long-term changes. Nature 540:418–422

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pollock S, Susan P (1999) Ancient Mesopotamia, vol 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

  • Potts DT (1997) Mesopotamian Civilization: the Material Foundations. Cornell University Press, NY

    Google Scholar 

  • Richardson CJ, Hussain NA (2006) Restoring the Garden of Eden: an ecological assessment of the marshes of Iraq. BioScience56(6):477–489

  • Richardson CJ, Reiss P, Hussain NA, Alwash AJ, Pool DJ (2005) The restoration potential of the Mesopotamian marshes of Iraq. Science 307(5713):1307–1311

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ruiz D (2010) Ecocide in the Mesopotamian marshes. Policing in Central and Eastern Europe - Social control of unconventional deviance 22:139

  • Saleh DK (2010) Stream gage descriptions and streamflow statistics for sites in the Tigris River and Euphrates River basins, Iraq, vol 540. US Department of the Interior, US Geological Survey, Reston

    Google Scholar 

  • Saleh SA (2012) Studying of the environmental changes in marsh area using Landsat satellite images. Journal of Asian Scientific Research 2(8):427

    Google Scholar 

  • Sama A, Ali D, Hamid AS (2012) Mesopotamian marshlands: salinization problem. J Environ Prot 3(10):1295–1301

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Senapati N, Stratonovitch P, Paul MJ, Semenov MA (2019) Drought tolerance during reproductive development is important for increasing wheat yield potential under climate change in Europe. Journal of Experimental Botany 70(9):2549–2560

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Serinaldi F, Kilsby CG, Lombardo F (2018) Untenable nonstationarity: An assessment of the fitness for purpose of trend tests in hydrology. Advances in Water Resources 111:132–155

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shubbar RM, Salman HH, Lee DI (2017) Characteristics of climate variation indices in Iraq using a statistical factor analysis. International Journal of Climatology 37(2):918–927

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sissakian VK, Al-Ansari N, Adamo N, Zaiani MT, Abdullah M, Laue J (2020) Tectonics and neotectonics of the Mesopotamian Plain: a critical review. Earth Sciences Geotechnical Engineering 10(4):57–86

    Google Scholar 

  • Stirling E, Fitzpatrick R, Mosley L (2020) Drought effects on wet soils in inland wetlands and peatlands. Earth Sci Rev 210:103387

  • Sulla-Menashe D, Friedl MA (2018) User guide to collection 6 MODIS land cover (MCD12Q1 and MCD12C1) product. USGS: Reston, pp 1–18

  • Tirivarombo S, Osupile D, Eliasson P (2018) Drought monitoring and analysis: standardised precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and standardised precipitation index (SPI), vol 106. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C, pp 1–10

    Google Scholar 

  • Trigger BG (1993) Early Civilizations: Ancient Egypt in Context. American University in Cairo Press. Cairo, Egypt

    Google Scholar 

  • UNESCO-World Heritage Centre (2016) The Ahwar of Southern Iraq: Refuge of Biodiversity and the Relict Landscape of the Mesopotamian Cities. United Nations. Available: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1481. Accessed 3 Sept 2020

  • Wan R, Wang P, Wang X, Yao X, Dai X (2019) Mapping aboveground biomass of four typical vegetation types in the Poyang Lake wetlands based on random forest modelling and landsat images. Frontiers in Plant Science 10:1281. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.01281

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Wilkinson TJ (1997) Environmental fluctuations, agricultural production and collapse: a view from Bronze Age Upper Mesopotamia. In: Dalfes HN et al (eds) Third millennium BC climate change and Old World collapse. Springer, Berlin, pp 67–106

  • Wilkinson TJ, Bintliff J, Curvers HH, Halstead P, Kohl PL, Liverani M, McCorriston J, Oates J, Schwartz GM, Thuesen I, Weiss H (1994) The structure and dynamics of dry-farming states in Upper Mesopotamia [and comments and reply]. Current Anthropology 35(5):483–520

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zamani-Ahmadmahmoodi R, Esmaili-Sari A, Ghasempouri SM, Savabieasfahani M (2009) Mercury in wetland birds of Iran and Iraq: contrasting resident Moorhen, Gallinula chloropus, and migratory common teal, Anas crecca, life strategies. Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 82(4):450

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Zargar A, Sadiq R, Naser B, Khan FI (2011) A review of drought indices. Environmental Reviews 19(NA):333–349

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang H, Abed FH (2013) Dynamics of land use/cover change in Iraqi Marshlands using remote sensing techniques. Environmental Engineering & Management Journal (EEMJ) 12(9):1825–1828

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The first author would like to acknowledge Brian G. Jones and Martin Struck for reviewing and commenting on the early version of the manuscript. The first author would like to acknowledge the European Satellite Authority (ESA) for providing a Sentinel Hub for dataset and the Amazon Web Services (AWS)-Machine Learning (ML) for their funding support for developing countries and for approving our southern Mesopotamia wetlands monitoring project.

Funding

All funding sources were mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Science, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia

    Ali K. M. Al-Nasrawi

  2. Department of Geography, University of Babylon, Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Hillah, Babylon, Iraq

    Ali K. M. Al-Nasrawi

  3. School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, 2000, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Ignacio Fuentes & Dhahi Al-Shammari

Authors
  1. Ali K. M. Al-Nasrawi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ignacio Fuentes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Dhahi Al-Shammari
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

The original conception of the study was developed by Ali K. M. Al-Nasrawi. All authors contributed to the study design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Ignacio Fuentes and Dhahi Al-Shammari. The first draft of the manuscript was written by all authors, who also read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ignacio Fuentes.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

Authors declare no conflict of interests. 

Ethics Approval

Not applicable. 

Consent to Participate

Not applicable. 

Consent for Publication

Not applicable.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This article belongs to the Topical Collection: Wetland Hydrology and Geomorphology.

Supplementary Information

ESM 1

(PDF 454 KB)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Al-Nasrawi, A.K.M., Fuentes, I. & Al-Shammari, D. Changes in Mesopotamian Wetlands: Investigations Using Diverse Remote Sensing Datasets. Wetlands 41, 94 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01490-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01490-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation