
Scientists from Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., and Iraqi engineers have assembled a computer model of that arid Middle Eastern nation’s surface water and related systems.
The project, which was sponsored by the State Department, is expected to help the Iraqi government make more rational choices in water and land planning. An official explains that the model possesses accurate “transboundary flows from Turkey, Syria and Iran, along with agriculture, municipal and industrial uses, salinity and restoration of the ecologically sensitive and culturally rich Mesopotamian Marshes in the south,” says a spokesman.