However, the history of the marshes is a story of constant change and adaptation. The marshes have had their water supply reduced, managed and diverted many times; from the 4th Millennium BCE, when the marshes were neighbour to the world’s earliest cities, up until the draining of the marshes by the Ba’athist government in the 1980s and 90s. For over five thousand years, marsh communities have found ways to adapt and endure in the face of environmental crisis. 

This project will study the changing relationship between settlement and environment in the Western Hammar Marsh in deep-time perspective to analyse how past and more recent communities have persisted through dramatic environmental changes. Employing archaeology, geology, hydrology and ethnography, a multidisciplinary approach will be used to build heritage-based narratives aimed at informing policy makers. Heritage- and ecologically-based economic strategies will be presented, intended to off-set and provide alternatives to unsustainable and extractive farming and industry.