Environmental pollutants and their impact on plant biodiversity in the Hammar and Al-Hawizeh marshes

Abstract

The aim of the study was to reveal the impact of environmental pollution on aquatic and terrestrial plants in the Hammar and Al-Hawizeh marshes. Therefore, the analytical and descriptive approach was used in the study. Environmental pollutants led to the emergence of quite a few types of plants that had not been previously recorded, amounting to 24 species. The Hammar Marsh accounted for the largest number of invasive plants by 21 species. As for the Al-Hawizeh Marsh, the number of invasive species of plants reached 16, and the most prominent of these plants Invasives in the study area are Ghaziza and Hydrilla/Al-Kutl. In addition, there are (11) species of aquatic plants that are threatened with extinction, five of them are in the Hammar Marsh, and eight species in the Al-Hawizeh Marsh are threatened with extinction and are rare, and seventeen species of aquatic plants were not found in the waters of the marshes of the study area. It is recorded in Hori Al-Hamar and Al-Hawizeh. The study recommends that pollutants of various types, such as sewage and heavy sewage in particular, and pollutants resulting from hospital wastewater, should not be thrown into water systems, which have dire effects on plant diversity because they contain organic and inorganic substances, bacteria, carbohydrates and proteins, which, when oxidized, turn into Substances that deplete dissolved oxygen in water, which plays a major role in preserving aquatic life, causing environmental disturbance that harms these organisms and negatively affects the formation and distribution of their communities. pollutants into an aquatic environment, And the establishment of permanent supervision by the departments concerned with the protection and activation of environmental protection laws.

Keywords: environmental pollutants, biodiversity, biodiversity in Iraq