Wetlands in the Mesopotamian Plain in southern Iraq were extensively drained in the 1990s. Re-flooding of drained areas commenced in 2003, and included parts of the Central marsh between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. New vegetation in the re-flooded areas of the Central marsh was studied in 2006. Most of the wetland plant species and communities widely distributed prior to drainage have reappeared, but there were some species and communities that did not re-establish. Aboveground plant biomass is recovering in some communities, but in most of the new communities, biomass and diversity were low. Postflooding sites were characterized by higher concentrations of chloride and bicarbonates in surface water and higher percent organic matter in sediment than those prior to drainage. Comparisons among the three study sites in the re-flooded areas and those between pre-drainage and postflooding sites suggests that differences in water quality, including more saline conditions in the re-flooded wetlands, might be hindering the biomass recovery. The water source being limited to only the Euphrates River, a much more subdued seasonal fluctuation in the quantity of water input and output, and inputs of contaminated waters appear to be responsible for the delay in vegetation recovery in the Central marsh.

A field experiment was conducted in the experiment field of Agricultural College, Basrah University, to study the effect of three types of moldboards i.e. helical, general purpose and digger moldboard, three tillage depths (15, 20 and 25 cm) and three forward speeds (4.37, 6.11 and 7.03 km h-1) on the draft force (DF), soil pulverization index (SPI), the specific energy (SE), the energy equivalent (EQE), and soil pulverization efficiency (SPE). Split-split plot with complete randomized block design with three replications were used in this study, and Least significant differences (LSD) was used to compare the means of treatments at 0.05 levels. The results showed there was a significant effect for moldboard types, plowing depths, plowing speeds and the interaction on all studied parameters. Whereas the digger moldboard type achieved the lower values of DF and SPI compared with the general purpose and helical moldboard types by percentage of 12.13 and 19.49% respectively and 16.37 and 50.61% respectively. However, the digger moldboard gave the highest value of SPE of 80%. The results Also, indicated to that the plowing depth and plowing speed had a significant effect on studied parameters when increasing the plowing depth by percentage 67% the DF and SPI increased by 137.27% and 30.46%, while the SE, the EQE and SPE reduced by 18.19, 17.80 and 2.70 % respectively. However, increasing the plowing speed by a percentage of 61%, the DF, SE, EQE, and SPE increased by 25.98, 45.11, 8.18 and 35.59% respectively, while the SPI decreased by 29.15%.