Regional meteorological drought assessment in Iraq

Abstract

Regional assessment of drought characteristics provides essential information for water resources management. The study aimed to analyze the regional meteorological drought in Iraq for the period (1970–2013) using monthly rainfall data collected from 22 meteorological stations scattered all over the country. We have used the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI), theory of runs, GIS, and drought severity-area-frequency (SAF) curves to analyze the accumulated deficits, drought duration, severity, and the frequency of each of the drought classes. Results showed that study area suffered from recurrent drought periods, and the severest drought periods were from 1997 to 2001 and from 2007 to 2010. In addition, the majority of the droughts were of the class (mild dry) according to the SPI classification with an occurrence percentage of 33.44%. The highest drought rates characterized the northeastern zone of Iraq compared with other parts of study area in terms of the accumulated deficit of rainfall and drought duration. Results showed that dividing the study area into three homogeneous zones improved the formulation of SAF curves and made it more realistic. The return periods of the dry years within the study period ranged from 2 to 100 years and for the three zones of the study area.