Drought is an extreme climate phenomenon that comprises climatic dubiety induced by the environment. Iraq experienced severely drought events in last decades, particularly Erbil Province in the Kurdistan Region. Over the last two decades, Erbil Province suffered from severe agricultural drought, causing a significant reduction in crop yield. The application of satellite-based indices for the assessment of drought severity assessment in semi-arid countries is well known. This study was sought to incorporate geoinformation technology into the evaluation of agricultural drought severity and its relationships with crop yield in Erbil Province throughout the years 1998–2017. Forty images of the Landsat satellites time-series 5 TM, 7 ETM+, and 8 OLI utilized for this study. Twenty mosaics of two scenes prepared to extract the MSAVI2 index. The results showed that the drought caused a reduction of crop yield, particularly in the years 2000, 2008, and 2012. Besides, a significant decline in the MSAVI2-based vegetation cover area by 22.3, 15.8, and 15.7% in the aforementioned years, respectively. The results also revealed significant relationships among the MSAVI2 values, vegetation area, rainfall, and crop yield. Whereas, it was (0.472*) between the MSAVI2 and rainfall, and (0.635**) between the MSAVI2 and crop yield. Furthermore, Erbil Province, suffered severe to exceptional agricultural drought episodes in its southern and western partsin the years 2000, 2008, and 2012. It can be concluded, that the MSAVI2 index is an efficient tool for evaluating the agriculture drought in Erbil Province, and its significant positive relationship with the crop yield is higher than the relationship with the rainfall.
Volume 11 | 12-Special Issue
Pages: 536-545
DOI: 10.5373/JARDCS/V11SP12/20193249