A SPATIAL STORY OF DESTRUCTION AND RESTORATION: AL HAWIZEH MARSH, IRAQ

The al Hawizeh Marsh of southern Iraq is one of three marshes belonging to the semi-arid Tigris-Euphrates alluvial salt marsh ecoregion. This extensively freshwater wetland is the only natural marsh remaining in this ecoregion following the intentional environmental degradation imposed by the Saddam Hussein regime by the 1990s. As a result, these once highly biodiverse wetlands became wastelands. With the removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraqis destroyed the embankments on the rivers, allowing water to flow freely back into the marshes. Thus, this project aimed to evaluate, analyze, and visualize the change the al Hawizeh Marsh due to anthropogenic environmental degradation. Geographic information systems (GIS) was utilized to map and analyze changes in land cover change type, vegetation (NDVI), water (MNDWI), soil moisture (SMMI), soil salinity (SI), and land surface temperatures (LST) from 2000 (pre-flooding) to 2019 (post-flooding). This spatial analysis resulted in overall increases in water, vegetation, soil moisture, soil salinity and LST while the marsh itself yielded decreases in soil moisture, soil salinity, and LST. A random forest statistical analysis was performed to evaluate which variables resulted in the greatest change seen within the al Hawizeh Marsh. Unsurprisingly, water was the most crucial factor responsible for marsh’s change from 2000 to 2019. The second and third important change factors included soil moisture content and LST. These results only tell one side of the story; they are not indictive of on ground marsh health. Thus, it is imperative that Iraq implements impactful conservation efforts to promote the restoration and rehabilitation of this critically important and fragile ecosystem