Drought in Iraq: remote sensing assessment using LSWI-Index and Landsat imagery

Climate change has significantly increased the risk of drought and natural disasters. Droughts are expected to become more frequent and severe globally, particularly in Iraq, due to decreasing precipitation, rising temperatures, reduced vegetation cover, and water scarcity. The extent and location of drought are primarily influenced by limited precipitation and scarce water resources. In Iraq, drought is a serious and recurring issue exacerbated by the mismanagement of water resources and insufficient precipitation. Drought indicators are utilized to monitor and evaluate drought conditions to address this issue. Drought models typically consider systematic patterns of precipitation shortages, temperature increases, and other factors over decades. This study employs advanced technologies, including remote sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS), to assess drought-affected water surfaces in Iraq from 2000 to 2022 using the Land Surface Water Index (LSWI). The results demonstrate that LSWI effectively identifies hydrological droughts, especially during extreme drought events. Extreme drought conditions were observed in 2020 and 2021, with 43.9% and 43.3% of areas affected, respectively. Severe drought was prevalent in 2000 and 2001, with the highest recorded drought impact being 78.7% and 57.5% of the affected regions, respectively. Additionally, moderate drought conditions were notably high in 2019 and 2003, affecting 9.9% and 9.2% of areas, respectively. The findings of this research can support the development of effective drought alerts using remote sensing. The results confirm the usefulness of LSWI as a rapid and cost-effective index for monitoring changes in land surface water conditions and assessing the impact of drought.