Lessons from Iraq: Urban marshes and city survival
Friday, October 5, 2012 - 08:00
in Earth & Climate
Jennifer Pournelle is continuing to build the case that natural wetlands, rather than irrigated fields, are the fertile ground from which cities initially emerged in Mesopotamia. And her conclusions about the importance of wetlands to a sustainable urban environment – or, in fact, any environment – have particular resonance in southern Iraq. That area is both the site of her studies and the region where Saddam Hussein forcibly drained marshes to drive out the local populace after the first Gulf war.