Iraq

Iraq’s landscapes vary from plains, marshes, and mountains. It has a relatively small coastline at the Persian Gulf of the Indian Ocean and is also home to the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigres Rivers. Most of the country is used for human activities, in its majority by rainfed agriculture. Iraq has high biodiversity rarity of terrestrial land vertebrates at a global scale. When analysed as single taxons, the rarity of amphibians, mammals and reptiles is also high. The rarity of marine fish and mammals is also high. Challenges to biodiversity include wetland drainage from government water control projects; water insecurity; soil salination and erosion; desertification; air, soil, and groundwater pollution; effluents from oil refineries, factories and sewage.