Talk:Mesopotamian Marshes

History section

This article is a geographical article as per its title and should avoid large sections about politics as they are covered in details in many articles. I'll try to deal w/ this asap. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 13:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Well you posted that in May. When will this article actually have some information in it? 68.84.224.36 (talk) 18:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

It's nearly a full year since this was posted, and this article is still woefully devoid of content. What's going on? 68.84.224.36 (talk) 07:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

No to merging

• the merger proposed is a poor idea. these things are not the same. Oppose merge. Cecole (talk) 16:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Fen or bog

Does anyone know whether the water in the marshes basic (Fen) or acidic (Bog)? --Rumping (talk) 14:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

8 months later...I believe Fen, they are fed by upstream rivers and have a certain degree of salinity, see here.

There is more to be said about the history of this eco-system

E.g. see here. Hans Adler 07:52, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

True, see the three main marsh articles, Hawizeh Marshes, Central Marshes and Hammar Marshes which have more historical information. This article should have more information but it has ended up in the "subordinate" marsh articles I listed above.--NortyNort (talk) 08:23, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Merger

This article is small but has four separate and larger articles for the sub-marshes, Hammar Marshes, Hammar Lake (same as Hammar Marshes), Hawizeh Marshes and Central Marshes. I don't see a reason to have these separate articles with such a small article for the overall Mesopotamian Marshes. All could easily fit in this article in a concise way.--NortyNort (Holla) 10:31, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 19:02, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Disagree, strongly. The three marshes are geographically and hydrologically distinct, and are commonly referred to as such. The "Mesopotamian marshes", by contrast, are a construct existing largely on Wikipedia (part of the reason that the article on them is so small). Incidentally, the Haur al-Hammar is part of the Hammar marshes, but is not "the same" as it. It is a large waterbody and therefore probably deserves its own article, but is no more "the same" as the Hammar Marshes as Lake Superior is "the same" as the Great Lakes. Svejk74 (talk) 07:29, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I am not trying to "paint all the marshes with the same brush". I agree that the three main marshes are different but they are located adjacent to each other in a geographic region and are often referred to as such. Having this small article and three separate, small and similar articles isn't necessary. If you look at the three different sub-marsh articles, they are redundant in more than one area. Their specifics on natural drainage, size, ecology and other variations can be noted in specific sections. The man-made drainage for each can be combined in one section. The Great Lakes doesn't have this problem because the articles for each lake are considerably larger. The term Mesopotamian Marshes (+/- capital "M" in marsh) has been used by much more than Wikipedia, to include Harvard, NASA, UN/Iraq Foundation along with a lot of other academic, media and general organizations. I can't think of another over-arching name aside from "Southern Iraq marshlands". If you have any ideas for improvement, please explain. As far as the Hammar Lake being part of the Hammar Marshes, good point but it would be good to have that mentioned in either article.--NortyNort (Holla) 12:29, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'd say that the marshes are individually sufficiently large as features to warrant separate articles and, as mentioned, they are hydrologically distinct, being for the most part fed by different rivers (various combinations of the Tigris, Euphrates and Kharkeh Rivers). Much of the Hammar Marsh is a rather different type of habitat, being brackish. The history of their draining and ecological damage is also different, with the Central Marshes being drained from the 1950s onward, the Hammar marshes heavily impacted by oil exploration, and the Hawizeh marshes suffering particularly from effects of the Iran-Iraq war. Different tribes inhabited them. In a good twenty years of reading about the marshes and their inhabitants, I've gained the impression that the three areas of marshland are distinct enough to be treated separately.

You say that the Great Lakes should be treated differently because the individual articles are bigger. Well - surely the goal is ultimately to have bigger articles on each marsh as information is added (and I'd note that they're not particularly small articles by Wikipedia standards as it is). The marshes are ultimately as diverse (if not more so) than the Great Lakes are individually.

My own suggestion would be for the article on the "Mesopotamian" marshes, or whatever it's decided they should be called, to have a summary paragraph on each area with a link to the main article. Svejk74 (talk) 08:51, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

My goal is the same, to have three large articles and a Mesopotamian marshes articles with summaries. Right now, it isn't that way which is why I suggested a merge. I think they could be expanded and they are very old, so there has to be a lot to put in the articles. I have worked on these articles and studied the marshes as well. I don't dispute what your saying, I am proposing a merge mainly for structure and presentation of the subject. I can help expand them and would appreciate your help. --NortyNort (Holla) 10:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Some Notes

1. Fayssal is correct, the political stuff here should be curtailed. The Saddam-bashing might have been popular 10 years ago during USA's conquering and occupation of the country at the time in the old Western mags & papers this article mostly references, but I question if all the allegations are fair. After all, one doesn't immediately assume genocidal retribution was the reason swamps of Florida, the Netherlands or the Fens of England were drained. Shouldn't Iraq have irrigation or control flood waters? Gentrification also destroys traditional local culture, but knocking down the new townhouses is rarely advocated. And who says the people should want to return to living in reed huts on isolated malarial muddy islets? People who don't live there, that's who! And it's simplistic to think that the problems of people can be largely fixed by piercing dams and just adding water...

2. It might be pertinent to remember the coastline of this region has changed drastically since the time of Sumer: these marshes were under the sea 5000 years ago, and likely only began to exist relatively recently, as the coastline has shifted 100km into the Persian Gulf. Go 12,000 years back, and the opposite is true, the coastline lay 100s of km to the south.

3. Linking the Marsh Arabs to the well-known Sumerians is romantic but rather dumb conjecture. Who's to say they aren't descendants of the Elamites? Or the Khamazi, Kassites, Akkadians, Guti, Dilmuni, Magani, Babylonians, Amorites, Chaldeans, Jews, Luri or some group that left no written trace? Or are simply Arabs who moved into the area at a later date? After all, can we claim that the people of New York are the descendants of the Mohawk or Narragansett because they happened to live nearby at one time? We can't even claim the people of New York today are the descendants of the people of New York 100 years ago. And the cities in this region were the largest and most cosmopolitan in the world only 1200 years ago, which tends to attract immigrants...

Leo 86.83.56.115 (talk) 19:09, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

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Missing Marsh not mentioned here. (Shadegan wetland)

There is a 4th marsh besides Hammar, Central, and Huwaiza. The 4th marsh is the Shadegan wetland which is in the same geographic region and populated by the same people, flora, and fauna except it is entirely on the Iranian side of the border and shares no territory with Iraq or the Iraqi border as it is separated from Iraq by Abadan.

It should be included in this page and it already has its own wikipedia article for reference to be linked here. 170.223.207.1 (talk) 15:29, 20 October 2022 (UTC)