Returning Reeds?

Natural History, April, 2005

A mudhif (above) is a typical floating house made of reeds by the marsh dwellers of southern Iraq. Once inhabited by abundant fish, birds, and people, most of the marshes' original 6,000 square miles were desiccated by 2000--the result of thirty-two dams built upstream since the 1960s and a massive drainage program in the 1990s.

During the past two years, however, local residents have reflooded about 20 percent of the devastated areas by shutting clown water pumps, opening sluice gates, and breaching embankments. Reflooding does not guarantee restoration, though. Ecologists think some of the marshland could be successfully restored, but stress that accumulated concentrations of salt and toxic wastes must first be flushed from the surface so that they do not redissolve and thus pollute the newly introduced water. (Science 307:1307-11, 2005)