Analysis of Drought in Selected Areas of Iraq by Rainfall Anomaly Index (RAI) and Vegetation Relationship

Abstract

Current research assesses the Iraqi environment using the Rainfall Irradiation Index (RAI) method to see if climate change and drought can be controlled. The data used are from NASA's POSECERES and MERRAS databases for the period 1981-2021, and are annual precipitation values. The information from six weather stations scattered across Iraq is used to investigate the Iraqi environment. The RAI is a very useful tool for dividing the climate into stations. All precipitation time series from stations showed an increase in 2018. Consequences of the Rainfall Irradiance Index (RAI) show a higher upside of rainfall in humid, dry and very dry regions of the study, it is also found that the variation of the (RAI) is related to the change in vegetation cover in the totally concentrated stations. Compared to the northern and southern stations, the central stations had more stable precipitation. Most of the time, around all the RAI reference values, the dry cluster is the dominant example in the Iraqi district, which means that each of the six stations has a negative rainfall variance, and all of the stations in the study show a drought index, which suggests that we need to use new methods that are more responsive to climate variability.