The Shatt Al-Arab River region (SARR) in Iraq was an economically important area for food production. By the 1970s the environment of this region had begun to deteriorate, and since then the SARR has suffered from severe human- and natural-induced problems. In this study we use a coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) perspective to identify these problems, their interconnections, and the degree to which human or natural systems have contributed to environmental degradation. We used several measures of ecological, economic and social systems to quantify the problems and document changes ove...