The Mesopotamian marshes are important for economic, social, and biodiversity values and have been home to indigenous human communities for millennia. They are regarded as a legendary site.

This multi-authored book contains chapters written by world-renowned experts in their field. Both basic and applied information are made available, making the book a must-have for a wide spectrum of users. For example, an understanding of the natural and the social aspects of the marshes, as described here, is an obvious prerequisite for a pest management plan in this area. Scholars interested in wetlands can use this book as a guide to compare different wetlands areas in Asia. The bibliography section contains valuable references to the marsh areas and research in the field.

This book serves as an up-to-date comprehensive source of information on different aspects of the southern marshes of Iraq and is aimed at academic scholars, environmentalists, and decision makers.

Autorentext

Laith A. Jawad obtained a degree (MSc) in fish taxonomy from the Zoology Department, University of Bristol, UK, in 1980. He continued as fish taxonomist at Basrah University, Iraq, where he worked for more than 20 years before he immigrated to New Zealand in 1997. During this time, he started the biochemical taxonomy of fishes of Iraq and published over 400 scientific papers and book reviews in leading scientific journals. He is the author and co-author of several textbooks in biology published in Arabic. Recently, he contributed five chapters to a book about coastal fishes, Coastal Fishes: Habitat, Behavior and Conservation, published by Nova Publishers, Canada. And authored a book about Dangerous Fishes of the Eastern and Southern Arabian Peninsula published by Springer in 2017. He served as fish biodiversity expert and consultant at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in Oman for the period 20082012 during which he co-authored two papers describing a new fish species from the Omani waters and reported over 80 fish species as a new record to the Omani waters. He authored a guide to the fishes of the southern coasts of Oman published by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in Oman in 2018. He also published over 90 papers on fish fauna of Oman, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. In 2013, he broadened his scientific contact and started to collaborate with over 60 scientists from more than 50 countries around the world in researches dealing with different aspects of fish taxonomy and ichthyology.

Inhalt
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Part I. Historical perspectives.- Chapter 2. Cities in the Water: Waterscape and Evolution of Urban Civilization in Southern Mesopotamia as seen from Tell Zurghul, Iraq (Davide Nadali).- Chapter 3. Reed-Swamps in the Sumerian Material Culture: Archaeological, Archaeobotanical and Experimental Insights from the Abu Tbeirah Excavations (Licia Romano, Alessandra Celant, Maria Virginia Montorfani, Franco D'Agostino).- Chapter 4. Human Ecology of the Marshes (Ariel I. Ahram).- Chapter 5. Role of women in ancient Mesopotamia and the southern marshes of Iraq: a comparative account (Laith A. Jawad).- Part II. Environmental factors.- Chapter 6. Physical and chemical characters of Mesopotamian marshes: a short review (Bahram K. Maulood and Fikrat M. Hassan).- Chapter 7. Hydrologic structures in the Tigris Euphrates Bas and their impact on the vitality of the Marshes (Toon Bijnens).- Chapter 8. Importance of Hydrological and Hydrogeological Studies in Wetlands: Examples from Turkey (Melis Somay-Altas).- Chapter 9. Use of Multispectral and Hyperspectral Satellite Imagery for Monitoring Water Bodies and Wetlands (Mahdi Hasanlou and Seyd Teymoor Seydi).- Chapter 10. Usage of Satellite technology in monitoring the wetlands of Turkey, Tigris and Euphrates Watershed (Gordana Kaplan, Zehra Yigit Avdan, Ugur Avdan).- Part III. Geology.-  Chapter 11. Sedimentology and Mineralogy of Quaternary Sediments of Marshes, South of Iraq (Badir N. Albadran).- Part IV. Major biotope.- Chapter 12. Phytoplankton and Primary Production in Iraqi marshes (Bahram K. Maulood and Fikrat M. Hassan).- Chapter 13. Distribution patterns, diversity centres and priorities for conservation of Iranian true aquatic plants (Ahmadreza Mehrabian).- Chapter 14. Compiled checklist of aquatic invertebrates of the southern marshes of Iraq (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 15. The Indian shad Tenualosa ilisha (Hamilton, 1822) in the southern marshes of Iraq: a revision and evaluation of a compiled data (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 16. The presence of Gambusia fish in the southern marshes of Iraq: bad or good (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 17. Checklist of freshwater fishes of southwestern wetlands of Iran (Hamid Reza Esmaeili).- Chapter 18. Checklist of fishes of the Caspian Sea basin: Land of Wetlands (Hamid Reza Esmaeili, Keyvan Abbasi).- Chapter 19. The ornithological importance of the southern marshes of Iraq (Mudhafar A. Salim, Salwan A. Abed, and Richard F. Porter).- Part V. Biodiversity aspects.- Chapter 20. Northern Gulf Marine Biodiversity in Relevance to the River Discharge (Faiza Al-Yamani, Igor Polikarpov, Maria Saburova).- Chapter 21. A possible threat to the fish biodiversity in the southern marshes of Iraq: a mini review (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 22. Biotic homogenisation: a process that happening in the southern marshes of Iraq (Laith A. Jawad).- Part VI. Natural resources.- Chapter 23. Fish, fishing methods and Fisheries of the southern marshes of Iraq (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 24. The artisanal fishers in the southern marshes of Iraq and the traditional ecological knowledge (Laith A. Jawad).- Part VII. The marshes and human health.- Chapter 25. Fish consumption of mothers and their children in fishermen society in the marsh areas (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 26. Ingestion of fish bones: clinical cases from the marsh areas of Iraq (Laith A. Jawad).- Part VIII. Environmental challenges.- Chapter 27. The status of pollution in the southern marshes of Iraq: A short review (Nader A. Salman, Hamid T. Al-Saad, Faris J. Al-Imarah).- Chapter 28. The effects of man-made noise on the fishes in the marshes of Iraq (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 29. Heavy metals in wetlands in Turkey (Onur Can Türker and Jan Vymazal).- Chapter 30. Locals' awareness of ecotourism in the southern marshes of Iraq (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 31. The effects of thermal pollution on the aquatic life in the southern marshes of Iraq (Laith A. Jawad).- Part IX. Conservation.- Chapter 32. What ecological principles required for a proposed establishment and management of national parks in the southern marshes of Iraq (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 33. The possible difficulties and outcomes of the biodiversity conservation of the southern marshes of Iraq (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 34. Co-Management scheme to protect the southern marshes of Iraq: a proposal (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 35. Eradication as a method to manage the non-native fish in the marsh environment: a proposal (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 36. Freshwater commercial bycatch in the southern marshes of Iraq: the unexploited aquatic wealth and understated conservation problem (Laith A. Jawad).- Part X. Socio-economic aspects.- Chapter 37. Ornamental fish farming: a proposal for a successful small scale aqua business project in the southern marshes of Iraq (Laith A. Jawad).- Chapter 38. Migration of youth to the big cities from the southern marshes of Iraq: solutions to keep locals with an upgrading for...