The United Nations Environment Programme has been hard at work to help restore the Iraqi Marshlands that were largely destroyed by Saddam Hussein. This area has a rich history as the heart of Mesopotamia. The destruction to the Marshlands were significant, with more than 90 percent of the area drained and subdivided by canals and more than 300,000 “marsh arabs” displaced under Saddam’s direction. The area is now 60 percent restored, and there’s an ongoing effort to create both a national park and a U.N. World Heritage Site.
Geospatial technologies played a vital role in assessing the damage and helping to determine remediation efforts. As part of the restoration, UNEP has developed an Iraqi Marshlands Observations System (IMOS) to monitor the changes in vegetation and biodiversity of the area.
One objective of the remediation effort is to provide clean drinking water to the villages within the marshes, and a pilot project introduced solar energy to power a drinking water filtration system.
This project shows the impact that international attention and scientific innovation can have to remediate environmental injustice and create a sustainable ecosystem. Japan was the largest contributor to this coordinated remediation effort, and a meeting is taking place this week there to assess the impact of the project and to determine next steps.
