Evaluation of Water Quality Parameters in Marshes Zone Southern of Iraq Based on Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques

Al-Hawizeh Marsh is considered a major marsh in the south of Iraq with a longitude of 47° 32″–47° 45″ and latitude of 31° 30″–31° 42″, length of 80 km and width of 30 km, while the depth is from 1.5 to 4 m. It has a significant impact on the ecosystem and provides habitat for several types of living creatures. The surface water and the agricultural lands surrounding this marsh suffered from high level degrees of salinity. In the last decades, radical deterioration of water quality in this marsh happened because of the post-war-related events and several human activities. Landsat-8 data was used to predict and evaluate the spatial variation and map distributions of the salinity, SO₄ and CaCO₃ within Al-Hawizeh Marsh during the two seasons in the year 2017 based on the development of salinity and minerals mathematical equations. The evaluated values for salinity, SO₄ and CaCO₃ are found to be minimal in winter and maximum in autumn. The values of correlation coefficient (R²) between the real data and the equation results for the salinity, SO₄ and CaCO₃ during the two seasons are 0.95, 0.96 and 0.92, respectively.