Central Marshes (Iraq)

The Central or Qurna Marshes were a large complex of wetlands in Iraq that were part of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, along with the Hawizeh and Hammar Marshes. Formerly covering an area of around 3000 square kilometres, they were almost completely drained following the 1991 uprisings in Iraq and have in recent years been reflooded.

The Central Marshes stretched between Nasiriyah, Al-'Uzair (Ezra's Tomb) and Al-Qurnah and were mainly fed by the Tigris and its distributaries (the Shatt al-Muminah and Majar al-Kabir). They were drained by the (partially artificial) Prosperity Canal, and by the Glory River. The Central Marshes were characterised by tall qasab reeds but included a number of freshwater lakes, of which the largest were the Haur az-Zikri and Umm al-Binni (literally "mother of binni", the latter being a species of barbel.) The marshes support breeding populations of the Basra reed-warbler and marbled teal, along with several other species of non-breeding birds. It was feared that the Levant darter (Anhinga rufa chantrei), a subspecies of the African darter, and the maxwelli subspecies of the smooth-coated otter had disappeared entirely, but small and threatened populations remain of both. It is feared that the Bunn's short-tailed bandicoot rat (Nesokia bunnii, syn. Erythronesokia bunnii), which had only been described from specimens obtained in the Central Marshes, is extinct.

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