Using time series of Meteorological and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data for Monitoring Drought over Iraq.
Abstract
Drought is a major natural disaster in the different regions of the world. Iraq is one of the countries that has recently faced several drought events. Droughts happen mostly due to precipitation deficit. Other climate factors that contribute to the drought event are temperature, wind and humidity. We calculated the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) at various time scales i.e. 1, 3, 6, 12 months across Iraq over the long time series of 38 years (1981-2018). We also used NDVI derived from AVHRR from 1981 to 2018. The statistical relation between SPEI drought index and NDVI are important to demonstrate the sensitivity of NDVI. We analyzed AVHRR/ NDVI and drought index to assess the fluctuations and trends in vegetation coverage over the 38 years. Results showed that a significant drought between 2007-2018. Trend maps of drought index (1981-2018) revealed extreme droughts covered more than 90% of the area of Iraq. Drought events in Iraq were also a result of the drought in the upstream countries of Turkey, Syria, and Iran which in turn reduced the runoff into Iraq (the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) and Iranian rivers (Karkha and Karoon rivers).
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.H13O1961A
- Keywords:
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- 1812 Drought;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1813 Eco-hydrology;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1833 Hydroclimatology;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1834 Human impacts;
- HYDROLOGY