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ONE of the world鈥檚 largest marshes, home to the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq,
has all but disappeared over the past decade, according to satellite images
released this week by the UN Environment Programme. UNEP鈥檚 director, Klaus
Toepfer, describes the loss as 鈥渁 major ecological disaster, comparable to the
drying of the Aral Sea and the deforestation of Amazonia鈥�.

But claims that this environmental and human disaster is largely due to
drainage projects carried out by Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of the Gulf War
were contested by hydrologists this week. They say that dams built by Turkey in
the headwaters of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, which feed the marshes, are
at least as much to blame as drainage.

The images of the desiccated marshes of southern Iraq are among a batch of
16,000 pictures of environmental degradation across the planet taken by American
Landsat remote-sensing satellites. NASA donated the images to UNEP, which
released them alongside the report An Ecosystem Falls Apart: disappearance of
the Mesopotamian marshlands.

Toepfer says the images 鈥渟how that around 90 per cent of this special
wildlife habitat, home to rare species and peoples with a 5000-year cultural
history, has been lost as a result of human impacts including extensive
诲谤补颈苍补驳别鈥�.

Until the 1970s, the freshwater marshes covered up to 20,000 square
kilometres. As well as providing farming and fishing grounds for the Marsh
Arabs, the wetlands underpin up to 40 per cent of Kuwait鈥檚 shrimp catch: the
crustaceans spawned in the marshes before juveniles headed downstream to the
Gulf.

But since then, dams and drainage projects have cut off the water supply.
Major losses are thought to have occurred in the early 1990s, when Saddam built
a huge network of dams, embankments and canals in and around the marshes (New
Scientist, 17 April 1993, p 11). Some drained the marshes; others diverted the
rivers Tigris and Euphrates along canals, including a giant 鈥渢hird river鈥�, which
prevented the rivers from spilling into the marsh areas during the wet
season.

Iraq said the works were designed to drain salt from agricultural soils,
which made them impossible to cultivate. But human-rights activists claimed
Saddam was trying to drive out the Marsh Arabs, who lived in reed houses on
artificial islands in the marshes, and who had rebelled against his regime in
1992. Most have since left, and much of the marsh is now reported to be a
salt-encrusted desert.

But some hydrologists, including those employed by supporters of the Marsh
Arabs, now conclude that Saddam is not wholly to blame. British hydrology
consultant Ron Manley has advised the European Union and the AMAR appeal for the
Marsh Arabs on the issue. He calculates that Turkish dams built in the late
1980s and early 1990s have cut the annual flow of the Euphrates by more than 20
per cent, and could eventually halve the flow. 鈥淭he storage capacity of [all]
the dams on the Euphrates is six times greater than the river鈥檚 annual flow,鈥�
concludes the UNEP report.

The dams divert water for irrigation across eastern Turkey, Manley says. Dams
planned for the Tigris, including the controversial Ilisu dam being promoted by
British engineering companies, would further reduce flow to the marshes.

But the absolute cut in river flows is not the main problem, Manley told New
Scientist. What鈥檚 more important is that the dams have 鈥渆liminated the spring
flush of floodwaters, on which the marshes depended to survive鈥�. Stopping the
spring flood has dried up three-quarters of the marshes, he says. Saddam has
done the rest.

Without the dams, Saddam鈥檚 drainage works would not have been possible at
all, Manley adds. By reducing the peak water flows, the dams 鈥渃reated a
situation where it was possible to carry out engineering works in the
尘补谤蝉丑别蝉鈥�.

Manley is sure the dry weather is not to blame. 鈥淭urkey claims that the
reduced river flows are caused by drought. But if you look at the rainfall data
for the catchment, there is no significant change.鈥�