In Iraq, war contamination is the result of dispensed bombs, bullets, detonation of chemical and conventional weapons, and burn-pit emissions by US bases. Increases in congenital anomalies were reported from Iraqi cities post-2003. These cities were heavily bombed and encircled by US bases with burn-pits. Thorium is a radioactive compound and a direct depleted-uranium decay-product. Radioactive materials, including depleted uranium, are routinely stored in US bases and they have been shown to leak into the environment. We conducted a case-control study to investigate associations of residential proximity to Tallil Air Base, a US military base near Nasiriyah, as well as levels of uranium and thorium in hair and deciduous teeth with congenital anomalies. The study was based on a sample of 19 cases and 10 controls who were recruited during late Summer and early Fall of 2016. We developed mixed effects logistic regression models with village as the random effect, congenital anomaly as the outcome and distance to the US base and hair metal levels (one at a time) as the predictor variable, controlling for child's age, sex and paternal education. We also explored the mediation of the association between proximity to the base and congenital anomalies by hair metal levels. We found an inverse association between distance to Tallil Air Base and risk of congenital anomalies and hair levels of thorium and uranium. The results of our mediation analyses were less conclusive. Larger studies are necessary to understand the scope of war contamination and its impact on congenital anomalies in Iraq.

Bilateral asymmetry is presumed to reveal the developmental variability of the fish in polluted aquatic environments. In these habitats, high-level asymmetry develops, and these fish expend more energy to balance their growth than fish that are not under an impact. A total of 210 specimens of Acanthopagrus bifasciatus, A. latus and Sparidentex hasta were collected from the marine waters of Iraq in the northwest part of the Arabian Gulf. The asymmetry was calculated for the sagittal otolith characters of length and width. Otolith width has lower asymmetry than otolith length for the three sparid fish species investigated. An increase in the value of fluctuating asymmetry with fish length was observed. This could be a pertinent indicator of pollution in the habitat.

The Arabian or Persian Gulf is recognized as one of the warmest estuaries globally. The sea surface temperature (SST) has been utilized in several studies to gauge the global warming associated with climate change. In the current investigation we present detailed in situ SST measurements for five consecutive years (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) in the northwest of the Gulf, specifically in Kuwait Bay. Results of data analyses were compared with the historical records for the region, revealing that the SST reached an extreme level never previously recorded either in the Gulf. The extreme SST in Kuwait Bay reached 37.6 °C, recorded by the offshore station KISR01 located in the middle of the Bay. The event was associated with heatwave, neap tides, and an extended period of Kous winds which are characterized by high humidity levels and accompanied by large-scale intermittent fish kill incidents that extended the full length of the Kuwait coastline. Several fish kill incidents were reported also at the northern edge of the Gulf along Shatt Al Arab stretch in Iraq. The species found dead during the incident varied considerably, unlike those found in the frequent summer incidents. The records presented in this study may provide evidence to the effects of global warming, aid further research, and encourage the concerned international government bodies to deliver urgent environmental policies.

Asymmetrical variations in six bilateral morphological characters of 75 specimens of Saurida tumbil obtained from the marine waters of Iraq were assessed. The level of asymmetry in the snout length was highest among the morphological traits examined. Variations in asymmetry in S. tumbil increased with size. These variations are possibly due to chemical contaminants.

Twenty daily time step–based SWAT simulation models for the Duhok, Adhaim and Dokan dam watersheds, in Iraq, were implemented using five land cover (LC) and digital elevation model (DEM) of different resolutions. The optimal LC and DEM for computing the most accurate streamflow for each watershed were specified. Results indicated that delineation of the flat watersheds is significantly affected by the DEM resolution and there was no evident trend on the computation of watersheds’ total areas, boundaries, number of subbasins and stream networks. Moreover, there is no significant trend between the increase in LC and DEM resolutions and accuracy of the computed streamflow. The most accurate streamflows for the Duhok, Adhaim and Dokan watersheds were computed using LC (DEM) of 30 m, 1000 m and 1000 m.

Using solely an optical remotely sensed dataset to obtain an accurate thematic map of land use and land cover (LU/LC) is a serious challenge. The dataset fusion of multispectral and panchromatic images play a big role and provide an accurate estimation of LU/LC map simply because using a dataset from different spectrum portions with different spatial and spectral characteristics will improve image classification. For this study, the Landsat operational land imager multispectral and panchromatic images were adopted. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of using a panchromatic highly spatial resolution to refine the methodology for LU/LC mapping in Baghdad city, Iraq, by performing a comparison of classifications using different algorithms on multispectral and fused images. Different classification algorithms were employed to classify the data set; minimum distance (MD) and the maximum likelihood classifier (MLC). A suitable classification method was proposed to map LU/LC based on the outcome results. The result evaluation was conducted by applying a confusion matrix. An overall accuracy of a fused image using a principal component-based spectral sharpening algorithm and classified by the MLC classifier reveals the highest accurate results with an overall accuracy and kappa coefficient of 98.90% and 0.98, respectively. Results showed that the best methodology for LU/LC mapping of the study area is found from fusion of multispectral with panchromatic images via principal component-based spectral algorithm with MLC approach for classification.

In recent years, the problem of rising salinity levels in the Shatt al-Arab river in southern Iraq has been repeated, which has directly affected the living and health situation and the agricultural activity of these areas. Six sampling stations were selected along Shatt al-Arab to estimate the concentration of total dissolved solids (TDS) in the river; these stations included the following: Qurna, Labani, City Centre, Kateban, Corniche, and Sihan. In addition, three Landsat-8 satellite images which were taken at the same time as collected samples also used for detecting the salinity in the river. After processing of atmospheric correction and inserted remote sensing indices, the reflectance of water extracted from satellite images was used to express the spectral characteristics of different TDS concentrations. Correlation and regression were used to obtain accurate models for detecting the salinity depending on the spectral reflectance of Landsat 8 operational land image OLI. The results presented Pearson correlation (r) value of 0.70, 0.97, and 0.71, and correlation coefficient (R²) of 0.56, 0.94, and 0.85 between field data with spectral data of salinity index 2 (SI-2) derived from the green and blue bands of Landsat obtained in 2015, 2017, and 2018 respectively. In conclusion, remote sensing and GIS technologies coupled with spectral modeling are useful tools for providing a solution of future water resources planning and management, and also offer great undertaking as a means to improve knowledge of water quality and support water decision making.

Sandy dust storms in Iraq represented a serious problem for human health, not only in Iraq but also extended to be in other countries. Therefore, this study has assessed five heavy metals (Cd, Ni, Zn, Pb, and Fe) in the sandy dust storms from ten locations in the middle and south of Iraq. Contamination levels in the dust were evaluated by using various pollution indices. Heavy metals recorded a high pollution load index (PLI) that considered as baseline pollution in the dust. The geo-accumulation index (Igeo) values were moderately contaminated for Cd, and Pb, in case of potential ecology risk ([Formula: see text]), was a considerable risk for Cd. Based on multivariate analysis which is performed by principal component analysis (PCA), correlation analysis (r²) and cluster analysis (CA) revealed that heavy metals in sandy dust storms were possible from anthropogenic activities. The Cd, Ni, Zn, and Fe were from the same pollution sources, while Pb element was from the different pollution sources. Therefore, this data will be useful as sources to the Quality Control Department in Iraq to establish perfect qualitative standards and also to acquire a better quality of the atmosphere in Iraq and the region.