Soil moisture is highly variable in space and time; moreover, it has nonlinear effects on a wide variety of environmental systems. Understanding the multiple hydrological processes, developing more accurate models of those processes, and applying those models to conservation planning all benefit greatly from a better characterization of temporal and geographic variability in soil moisture. Vegetation indices (VIs) are used to assess vegetative coverings objectively and subjectively through spectral observations. The spectral responses of vegetated areas are influenced by many factors, including vegetation and soil brightness, environmental influences, soil color, and moisture. This research looked into the soil adjusted indices SAVI and MSAVI for the city of Bristol in the United Kingdom and assessed them. The Landsat 8 OLI of the research area was downloaded, whereas Bands 4 and 5 were processed in a geographic information system (GIS) to provide SAVI and MSAVI. The obtained values for the SAVI index are between -0.557 and 0.425, and the obtained values for the MSAVI index are between -1.183 and 0.441. The MSAVI is able to extract a thicker layer of vegetation than the SAVI. Similarly, MSAVI has revealed more non-vegetated locations compared to those extracted by SAVI. Since the MSAVI index provides reliable signals of land cover, it should be used in research applications. Technically, the work presented the GIS functionality of a raster calculator for processing Landsat 8 OLI data, and regionally, it added to the studies of Bristol City.

The effect of vegetation cover (VC), in addition to environmental changes, is one of the most critical aspects affecting the erosion of the soil of river banks. Therefore, this paper investigated the influence of vegetation cover (VC) on the erosion of Tigris River banks in Samarra City. The study was conducted with multiple monthly research periods (May, June, July, and August) during the summer of 2021for testing the soil erosion in twelve sites on Tigris River banks. A mini jet erosion test (mini JET) device was used in this work to reduce testing times, save energy, and provide a low cost method. At each site two JETs were conducted, one on a soil covered with vegetation and other on a bare soil. The monthly average values of the soil erodibility coefficient (kd), the critical shear stress (τc), and the percentage of VC (VC%) were computed for the soils with VC and the bare soils at each site. It was concluded that improvement of soil erodibility resistance could be achieved by the existence of VC due to an increase in soil organic matter (OM) content. It was noted that the kd had more decreasing with the existence of VC compared to the bare soils at the twelve sites, while the τc showed more increasing. It was also discovered that the lowest value of kd (= 0.4 cm 3 /N. s) occurred at a VC% of 32.2% at site no. 12. The findings of this study supported the results obtained from previous researches which studied the effect of VC on bare soils. Finally, the study recommended that the VC% on the Tigris River banks within Samarra City be more than 32.2% to reduce the erosion of river banks as well as to preserve the morphology of the river.

Phytoremediation is the utilisation of plants to remove pollutants from a polluted media, such as soils and water. This method is an eco-friendly approach because it remediates water or soil from pollutants without chemical treatments or a chemical pre-treatment. For this reason, this method was used in this study to decolourise artificial water from a textile dye (methyl orange (MO)). The phytoremediation process was done using the Ocimum basilicum plant and continued for 30 days. The Ocimum basilicum plants were placed in plastic enclosures and exposed to 5 litres of coloured water (25 mg/L and 50 mg/L of OM) for the required duration. The enclosures were kept in a greenhouse with a controlled temperature (27±2°C), and 100 mL samples were taken from the enclosures every two days. The experiments showed that 1) the Ocimum basilicum plant removed 90% of the MO after 24 days when the MO dye concentration of 25 mg and 2) the MO dye in water decreases the relative growth rate of the Ocimum basilicum plant. This study concluded that the Ocimum basilicum plant is a promising alternative to removing dyes from water and should be adopted to reduce the effects of water pollution on the environment.