Client: Nature Iraq

Opportunity

By the turn of the century, one of the world’s most important cultural and ecological areas – the Marshlands of Mesopotamia – was left decimated after the former Iraqi regime diverted water for agricultural projects and political retaliation purposes. In 2004, an 8-year international effort to restore the Marshes was in place, the New Eden Project, with the aim of improving water utilization efficiency and fostering sustainable development.

Solution

Hydro Nova provided a full range of integrated solutions, including intelligence, development, optimization and environmental protection. Our intelligence services included topographic and environmental surveys, mapping and GIS, and numerical modeling of the marshlands, including a large capacity building component to deliver local skills in data collection and processing.

Development services included designing and running large-scale hydrodynamic river models and delivering the preliminary designs of infrastructure projects such as flood control and upgrading of water and sanitation services. Our major water optimization achievement was the strategic master plan for managing water resources in southern Iraq. The protection component included services such as monitoring of re-flooded areas and socio-economic field surveys.

Outcome

By 2006, roughly 60% of the marsh area had been restored, with important local ecological improvements, but much work still to be done. Upon completion in 2012, we had delivered the insight and package of tools that today enable Iraqi authorities to optimize the use of water resources in the Marshlands and to engineer and build Marsh restoration projects that achieve the intended results.