NASA: National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationEarth Observatory

Mesopotamia Marshes

February 28, 2000
Mesopotamia Marshes
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  10. 2009
Image Location
Map showing image location

At the start of the twenty-first century, the once-lush, richly diverse wetlands of Mesopotamia had been decimated. In the decades leading up to the new century, hydro-engineering—dams for flood control and hydroelectricity, canals and reservoirs for agricultural irrigation—had greatly reduced the volume of the annual marsh-renewing floods. Then, in the 1990s, the marshes became a political pawn: former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein drained large areas at least in part to punish the tribes living there, the Marsh Arabs, for participating in anti-government rebellions.

This series of images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite begins on February 28, 2000. Normally, winter snow and spring rainfall would have flooded Mesopotamia by this time of year; the wedge of land between the Tigris (flowing into the scene from near top center) and the Euphrates (flowing in from near left center) would have been dotted with ponds and verdant with reeds and other wetland plants. Instead, the area was reduced to a few small green patches and bare soil, varying in shades from purplish brown to pale beige. (The bright green vegetation is likely irrigated cropland, not marsh vegetation.) The largest remnant marsh, Al Hawizeh, straddles the Iran-Iraq border just east of the Tigris River (top right). Its purplish-green color may result from the combination of standing water (dark blue) and vegetation (dark green). Over the next two years, this remnant marsh shrinks further, essentially retreating to Iran.

Following the Persian Gulf War and the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, Iraqis began demolishing the dikes and canals that had drained the marshes. By February 9, 2004, a dramatic transformation was underway in Mesopotamia. Several large marsh areas north and south of the Euphrates had been re-flooded, and the dry land south of Al Hawizeh Marsh was being systematically filled. These areas appear almost purely dark blue or nearly black, which indicates that standing water was present, but that vegetation was absent or extremely sparse. In 2005, additional areas were flooded, especially north of the Euphrates (near image center). In some places, the water appeared more greenish than it did in 2005; this could be because plants or algae were growing or because the water was shallower.

In 2006, the flooded area appeared similar to the previous year, with some differences in the exact location of inundated and vegetated areas. In 2007 and 2008, the marshes were more clearly defined compared to the surrounding bare ground. Interestingly, however, they appeared reddish brown. Although the color would suggest that the plants were dormant or dead, that appearance must be a unique characteristic of the marsh plants growing there: a false-color image that includes shortwave and near-infrared light reveals that the ground is clearly covered with vegetation, which appears bright green. As of March 2009, the recovering marshes faced additional threats, including new dam construction and drought. The last image in the series documents the dry year. Not only the marshes, but also the irrigated farmland nearby appeared far less lush than the previous year.

A United Nations Environment Program assessment of the Iraq marsh restoration in 2006 concluded that roughly 58 percent of the marsh area present in the mid-1970s had been restored in the sense that standing water was seasonally present and vegetation was reasonably dense. Two years of field research by Iraqi and American scientists concluded that there had been a “remarkable rate of reestablishment of native macroinvertebrates, macrophytes, fish, and birds in re-flooded marshes.” However, the lack of connectedness among the various re-flooded marshes remained a concern for species diversity and local extinction. In addition, the volume of water that flowed into the marshes in the first years of restoration may not be able to be sustained as the country stabilizes and economic and agricultural activity resume. As a result, the ultimate fate of Mesopotamian marshes is still uncertain.

last updated: August 25, 2009