Page 86 - Module_4_en

Module
4 The Nile Delta in 2002

The image shows the area with a sea level rise of 0.5 m and 1m.

9-12 December, 2013 Source: UNEP 2002, Environment Outlook for the Arab Region (EOAR) Report, 2010

BOX 8 UNEP project to help manage and restore the Iraqi Marshlands

Iraqi Marshlands Observation System (IMOS)

The Mesopotamian marshlands, the largest wetland ecosystem in West Asia, now cover only
seven per cent of their original area due to mismanagement over the past three decades.
The marshlands, which are reputed to be the site of the Garden of Eden, are an important
sanctuary for migratory birds, sustain freshwater fisheries and are an essential nutrient

source for fisheries in the Sea Area of the Regional Organization for the Protection of the
Marine Environment (ROPME). In the early 1970s, the marshlands covered more than 20
000 km but by 2000, over 90 per cent had dried out, largely transformed into a vast and
2
barren landscape of desert and salt flats. A third of the remaining 1084 km of marshland,
2
the transboundary Al-Hawizeh/Al-Azim marsh, which straddles the Iran-Iraq border, dried
out between 2000 and early 2003.

However, signs of an environmental turnaround in the marshlands started to emerge almost
immediately after the end of the war in May 2003, as the arid land was re-flooded for
the first time in a decade. Formerly dry areas have been inundated as floodgates were

opened, embankments and dykes breached, and dams emptied upstream, assisted by the
heavy rainfall.

84 Monitoring, Data and Indicators