marshes had been reinundated. The Nasiriyah Drainage Pump Station was completed in 2009, affording the Third River to be used for agricultural drainage. Recent drought and continued upstream dam construction and operation in Turkey, Syria and Iran have reduced the marshes to around 30% of their original size by 2009. Turkey has built at least 34 dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, threatening marsh recovery. From a high of around 75% restored in 2008, the wetlands receded to 58% of their average pre-drained level by spring 2015. Meanwhile, as the water level fell, salinity increased to 15,000 parts per million in some areas, up from 300 to 500 ppm in the 1980s. "When the river water levels were high, the low-saline Tigris washed over the marshes, cleansed them, and pushed the salty residue into the saltier Euphrates, which flows along the western edge. But now the Tigris is so low that the Euphrates provides most of the water in the marshes." The government prioritizes providing water to cities along the Tigris and Shatt al-Arab, resulting in reduced flow to the marshes. Threats From Climate Change and Pollution Temperatures in the region have risen over 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade, causing drought in Iraq and in neighbors whose waters flow into the Tigris and Euphrates. Combined with upriver dams, this reduction in water has caused the three primary marshes to fragment into 10 smaller marshes. Massive amounts of untreated sewage and other pollutants are dumped into the Tigris and Euphrates, moving downstream into the marshes and further degrading the water quality. See also Battle of the Marshes Tigris–Euphrates river system Shatt al-Arab Geography of Iraq External links Mesopotamian Marshes in Basra erea (VIDEO) Saddam Hussein's Crimes of War Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty References U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 2008. NASA Visible Earth from 2004 satellite photography Mesopotamia Marshes of Iran Marshes of Iraq Geography of Kuwait Ecoregions of Iran Ecoregions of Iraq Flooded grasslands and savannas Palearctic ecoregions Shatt al-Arab basin