Flushing Time of Shatt Al-Arab River, South of Iraq

Abstract

Flushing time for tidal rivers and estuaries is of great benefits for those involved in taking appropriate decisions in water resources management. Shatt Al-Arab River is the main and only source of fresh water to Basra City, South of Iraq. Unfortunately, this river is facing an environmental deterioration as a result of presence of many pollution sources. The calculated flushing time of the river helps to estimate the expected time needed to renew the river water. Fresh water fraction method was used to calculate flushing time. The results showed that three factors are responsible for affecting the value of flushing time. These factors are upstream coming flow discharge, phenomenon of tide and lastly the location distance from the estuary. The results also showed that the flushing time of the northern part of the river from Maqal port until the confluence with Karun River are much more than that of southern part. Results also showed that the flushing time for the whole parts of the river was 2.4 months.

Comparing Study Between Water Parameters of the Tide and Ebb Phase in Shatt Al-Arab River

“…Four stations where selected along the middle part of Shatt Al-Arab River Fig (1) and table (1). Water samples were collected monthly during the tide and ebb during the period from October 2021 to August 2022.…”

“…The phenomenon of tides is divided into two cases: the state of the tide and the water currents are in the direction of land. and case of the Ebb where the water currents are in the direction of the sea ,as these two cases are repeated twice (the occurrence of two tides and two ebbs in single day it is called the semi-diurnal tide, and when there is one tide and one ebb in single day it is Diurnal Tide [1]. The semi-diurnal-tidal type is the dominant pattern in the Shatt al-Arab river, which is characterized by two tides and two ebbs per day [2].Shatt Al-Arab river faces the danger of shortage of fresh water from its main rivers , the increase of the salt wedge from the Arabian Gulf during tide phase and the increase human influences and the organic and chemical waste dump into the river due to the increase in urbanization , this will effect directly the water quality [3,4].…”

The impact of buildup proposed barrage on tidal hydrodynamics in the Shatt Al-Arab ‎River, South of Iraq

“…The average width of the river is 400 m, and its depths range between 20-8 m (Al-Wahili, 2012). The Shatt Al-Arab River is a tidal river, and the tides in it are of a mixed type, the predominant semidiurnal (Abdullah, 2014;Lafta 2022a). The average tides (tidal range) are 1.84 m, 1.75 m, and 1.1 m in the Outer Bar, Al-Faw, and Basrah areas, respectively.…”

“…The salinity intrusion problem has a very high negative effect on the quality of the water and made it unfit for human, industrial, agricultural and other consumption. This situation also caused an increase in the flushing time of the Shatt Al-Arab waters (Abdullah et al, 2016). From here, the idea came for constructing a barrage on the river to prevent the salinity from reaching the upper reaches of the Shatt al-Arab river.…”

Study of some toxic metals in parts from catfish (Silurus triostegus) in Shatt Al-Arab river

“…The river is regarded as a navigation corridor for shipping, oil transportation, and fishing, in addition to being used by people for various of activities that use its water (1). On both river banks, several ports primarily base their operations on tidal conditions (2,3). With a mixed fauna of low endemicity and catfishes that are representatives of both European and southern Asian species, the Shatt Al-Arab in the Mesopotamian Tigris-Euphrates basin raises doubts about the evolutionary distinctness of this group of species for the area (4).…”