The Dalamj Marsh is a water treasure, and a shelter for fish that suffers from overfishing

Iraqi Palm Agency/ Report 
Iraq is a country rich of water. Besides its two rivers it contains many marshes, including Al-Dalamj Marsh of an area of 120,000 acres. Around the marsh edges there are many archaeological sites. In addition, this area was previously considered one of the very rich archaeological sites before It was flooded with water, and many archaeological hills still stand tall in it. It is an extension of the ancient city of Nippur. It is also considered one of   fishing sources in the southern Iraqi region. About 2500 families are earning their living from this marsh.

A soil embankment was established around the entire marsh to prevent the marsh water from passing to the nearby agricultural lands. 
Al-Dulmj Marsh or Al-Dulmj Lake is not a natural marsh. At first, it was established first to be used as temporary storage tank for reducing the pressure on general estuary at Al-Syphon region in south of Nasiriyah. 
As to the designs of the general estuary require construction of a huge pumping station that discharges up to 240 cubic meters per second. Its mission is to pump the estuary water (which is saline agricultural drainage water) through the siphon under the Euphrates River to go to Shatt al-Basra, then to Khor Abdullah and then to the Gulf. 
Al-Dulmj Marsh hosts a large numbers of migratory birds annually that are coming from Europe and Asia, as well as containing large quantities of fish. It is not far from the important ancient city of Nippur. There is a project by Al-Diwaniyah Governorate to establish a tourist village in which the designs were submitted by a German company. 
It includes a variety of fish of nearly (1200) species, rare migratory birds, cattle and buffalo breeding, agriculture, antiquities and the beauty of nature that makes the marsh environment distinctive place for tourists. Usually tourism starts from October to April. Unfortunately, the roads that are leading to that important site are not paved. Therefore the Government must take necessary action to pave them.  
The marsh now is suffering from government negligence and overfishing, especially during times of breeding using illegal methods that lead to great waste of livestock and loosing huge revenues.