Ecosystems provide humans with services that include benefits from food, fresh water, climate regulation, and socio-economic assets. The Mesopotamian marshlands are among the largest wetlands in the Middle East and they provide various benefits. However, ecosystem services of the Marshlands are consistently undervalued in national economic analysis and decision making. This study focusses on the Central Marshes, the first National Park in Iraq, and is the first attempt at valuing a series of ecosystem services from a valuable natural ecosystem in Iraq. We adopted the Toolkit for Ecosystem Services Site-Based Assessment (TESSA) for the determination of biophysical and economic values of services at the site level. Data on key ecosystem services (as determined by 30 interviews with residents of the Marshes) included the trading of fish, harvested plants, water buffalo milk, and fodder were collected across six months in 2014. We valued the ecosystem services within the CM (40,000 ha) over a 6-month period to have a total value of 860,078.23 USD. This estimated total value was the sum of 86,637.25 USD from harvested plants, 551,334.80 USD from trading fish, 167, 303.70 USD from trading water buffalo milk, and 54,804.00 USD from trading fodder. The average income per individual in Iraq in 2014 was 6720 USD (World Bank data - https://data.worldbank.org/country/iraq): thus, the CM provided an average salary for 256 people. Our results provided greater understanding of the ecosystem services contributed by the Central Marshes and has highlighted the crucial role of nature in supporting sustainable well-being for humans living in the area. In addition, the results can be used to enhance local policy, to aid management plans of the National park, and to estimate lost and damage that could result from impact of climate change on the area.
Commercial, industrial, and military activity, largely in the 19th and 20th centuries, have led to environmental pollution that can threaten human health and ecosystem function, liquid gas petroleum (LPG) products are the major sources of energy for industry and daily life that cause environmental contamination during various stages of production, transportation, refining and use. Screening of bacterial isolate by using clear zone techniques and biomass and optical density. Results revealed that isolate Burkholdaria cepatia showed a high ability for hydrocarbons biodegradation and this isolate identified depending on morphological cultural, gram stain, microscopic features, biochemical tests, and VITEK2 compact. In this study,
... Show MoreThis study was design to investigate the dimensional stability of heat-activated acrylic resin with different methods of flask cooling (15 minutes rapid cooling, one hour bench cooling, four hours delayed deflasking, and 24 hours delayed deflasking) at different time intervals (immediately, two days, seven days, 30 days) after deflasking. Heat-activated acrylic resin was used to prepare acrylic samples. Then, measurement of the distances where achieved between the centers of selected marks in the acrylic samples. They were measured at different time intervals for different methods of flask cooling. The results showed that the group samples of the four hours and 24 hours of delayed deflasking was insignificantly different from the control an
... Show MoreThe influence of pre- shot peening and welding parameters on mechanical and metallurgical properties of dissimilar and similar aluminum alloys AA2024-T3 and AA6061-T6 joints using friction stir welding have been studied. In this work, numbers of plates were equipped from sheet alloys in dimensions (150*50*6) mm then some of them were exposed to shot peening process before friction stir welding using steel ball having diameter 1.25 mm for period of 15 minutes. FSW joints were manufactured from plates at three welding speeds (28, 40, 56 mm/min) and welding speed 40mm/min was chosen at a rotating speed of 1400 rpm for welding the dissimilar pre- shot plates. Tow joints were made at rotational speed of 1000 rpm and welding speed of 40m/min f
... Show MoreThe Schiff base (E)-2-(((2-(1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl) phenyl) imino) methyl)-4-methylphenol (Lb) ligand with some metals(II) ion such as; Co, Cu, Cd, and Hg, were synthesis and characterized by the mass and 1 HNMR spectrometry for ligand Schiff base, the fourier-transform infrared spectroscop (FTIR), UV- visible and the flame atomic absorption (AA) spectrum, the CHN analysis, and the chlorine content, in addition to measuring the magnetic sensitivity of the complexes. All the complexes had octahedral geometry. The bioactivity activity for compounds against; Rhizopodium, Staphylococcus aureus, and Escherichia coli showed different efficacy towards these microorganisms
Many societies have some sports that play a pivotal role in enhancing human physical strength and martial arts and preserving religious values and beliefs. The most prominent of these traditional heroic sports are Zurkhaneh and Sumo, two sports that have their historical origins in the Iranian and Japanese cultural heritage. The research aims at shed light on the historical origins, symbolic rituals, and traditional elements of the sports of Zurkhaneh and Sumo, and to highlight the distinctive characteristics of the sports of Zurkhaneh and Sumo through objective analysis and comparison. The methodology used in this research is the historical approach, using the method of comparative analysis. This method includes analyzing information deriv
... Show MoreIn this work, wide band range photo detector operating in UV, Visible and IR was fabricated using carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs, SWCNTs) decorated with silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs). Silicon was used as a substrate to deposited CNTs/Ag NPs by the drop casting technique. Polyamide nylon polymer was used to coat CNTs/Ag NPs to enhance the photo-response of the detector. The electro-exploding wire technology was used to synthesize Ag NPs. Good dispersion of silver NPs achieved by a simple chemistry process on the surface of CNTs. The optical, structure and electrical characteristic of CNTs decorated with Ag NPs were characterized by X-Ray diffraction and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy. X-ray diffra
... Show MoreIn this study, functional and numerical response tests, which are important components in the selection of biological control agent, were carried out. In functional response trials, the amount of food consumed, attack rate (a) and handling time (Th) were calculated for each developmental period, depending on the number of preys given after 24 hours. The obtained results were evaluated with the Holling. In numerical response experiments, the development of the predator insect was examined depending on the number of preys given in certain numbers (5, 10, 20, 40 and 80) and the data were recorded. This phase of the trials continued until the individuals died. At this stage of the trials, the reproductive response of the p
... Show MoreTime-domain spectral matching commonly used to define seismic inputs to dynamic analysis in terms of acceleration time history compatible with a specific target response spectrum is used in this study to investigate the second-order geometric effect of P-delta on the seismic response of base-isolated high-rise buildings. A synthetic time series is generated by adjusting reference time series that consist of available readings from a past earthquake of the 1940 El Centro earthquake adopted as an initial time series. The superstructure of a 20-story base isolated building is represented by a 3-D finite element model using ETABS software. The results of the base isolated building show that base isolation technique significantly reduces inter-s
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