Mesopotamian Marshlands Database

Current Research Objectives

There are four main objectives to the work:

First, to provide a better understanding of the nature, extent, and location of the response (i.e., deterioration) in the Mesopotamian marshes to each of the engineering projects (e.g., dam, diversion canal, etc.) or groups of projects that was undertaken over the past 3 decades. An understanding of the latter is needed to guide the ongoing recent attempts to revive the marshlands. 

Second, to distinguish engineering related land cover land use changes (LCLUC) in the marshes from that of land cover change related to variations climate throughout the roughly 1 million km² catchment.         

Third, to provide and distribute data (e.g., temporal and spatial LCLUC and precipitation, digital elevation) needed to develop sound water management schemes and to construct and calibrate continuous catchment-based surface runoff model(s) for the entire Tigris-Euphrates basin.  I will generate and distribute (via a web-based GIS) co-registered digital datasets to be used by others as input into their surface runoff models. A preliminary archive of data sets (satellite-based spatial and temporal variations) has been generated from various satellite sensors and is hosted in an accessible web-based environment (http://www.esrs.wmich.edu/website/Eden). This objective is to complete the web-based GIS by adding new data sets (Task 1) together with the appropriate visualization tools.

Fourth, to implement a Continuous Catchment based rainfall runoff model. This model will be applied to the entire Tigris Euphrates catchment.  To alleviate problems arising from the paucity of rain gauges within the catchment, I will extract precipitation data from satellite-based sensors rather than using rain gauge data.  I will use the 3-hourly data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) datasets 3B42.v6 (available from 1997 to present) and/or the 4 hourly precipitation data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSMI)(available from 1987 to present).  The precipitation data will be used for two main purposes: (1) as input to the continuous catchment-based rainfall runoff model, and (2) to calculate average monthly and annual precipitation so that I can determine when the observed temporal LCLUC are related to the engineering projects or climatic changes experienced within the catchment.  Along with other inputs i.e., soil type, land use maps, and surface temperature, it will be possible to make first order calculations concerning the surface water hydrology in the catchment.  This will be use as a tool to understand the effects that each engineering project has had on the landscape and the surficial hydrologic system.