This study was aimed to demonstrate the spatial changes of Mosul Lake using change detection Techniques. Water bodies, an integral part of the Earth's hydrological cycle, such as rivers, ponds, lakes, wetlands, and reservoirs, have a major effect on climate change and global warming. one of the most imperative vital activities in Iraq for the administration of its water resources is Mosul Dam Lake. The lake has changed in the water surface due to the severe anthropogenic activities, climate change, the monthly inflows received from the Tigris River, and the controlling of water imports by neighboring countries, and the territorial policy. Remote sensing techniques and Geographic Information System ArcGIS 10.3 software were used in the present study for processing the images and managing the database of each image were downloaded from the united states geological survey(USGS). Spectral Water indices, includes Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and unsupervised classification were used to extracting water bodies and computing water area, the images difference technology was used to detect a different image and capture changes area for 20 years, the method has been applied to subsets of the Landsat series images that acquired during April in 2000, 2005, 2010,2015 and 2020. The results showed that there is an increase in the area of Mosul dam lake from its original area in 1986 which was 244 km2 in a rate of (15.1,31.14,13.11, and 20.9) % for periods (200,2005,2015, and 2020) respectively, and a decrease in water area with a rate of 7.78% for period 2010, that means the water surface area fluctuated over the period given, increasing and decreasing in the water surface. the minimum water surface area was recorded in 2010 of about 225 km2, whereas, the maximum area of the lake was found to be 320 km2 in 2005. the total average increasing and decreasing change detection were 25.4550174 and 19.7851824 km2 respectively.

Desertification is one of the phenomena that threatening the environmental, economic, and social systems. This study aims to evaluate and monitor desertification in the central parts of Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers through the use of remote sensing techniques and geographic information systems. The Normalized difference vegetation index NDVI and the crust index CI were used, which were applied to two of the Landsat ETM + and OLI satellite imagery during the years 1990 and 2019. The research results showed that the total area of ​​the vegetation cover was 2620 km2 in 1990, while there was a marked decrease in the area Vegetation cover 764 km2 in 2019, accounting for 34.8% (medium desertification) and 10.2% (high desertification), respectively. Also, the results showed that sand dunes occupied an area of ​​767 km2 in 1990, while the area of ​​sand dunes increased to 1723 km2 in 2019, with a rate of 10.2%) medium desertification (and 22.9% (severe desertification), respectively. It was noted that the overall rate of decrease in vegetation cover was 21.33 km2year-1 while the overall rate of increase in ground erosion in the area is 10.99 km2year-1.

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Extreme rainfall is one of the environmental hazards with disastrous effects on the human environment. Water resources management is very vulnerable to any changes in rainfall intensities. A spatiotemporal analysis is essential for study the impact of climate change and variability on extreme rainfall. In this study, daily rainfall data for 36 meteorological stations in Iraq during 1981–2017 were used to investigate the spatiotemporal pattern of 10 extreme rainfall indices using RClimDex package. These indices were classified into two categories: rainfall total (PRCPTOT, SDII, R95p, R99p, RX1day, and RX5day) and rainfall days (CDD, CWD, R10, and R20). Depending on the mean annual precipitation data, the study area was divided into three climatic zones to examine the time series features of those 10 indices. Results showed a tendency to increase in precipitation toward the northwestern part of Iraq, and more than 70% of stations achieved a positive trend for most indices. The most frequent negative trend appeared in eight stations distributed in the western and southern parts of Iraq, namely (Heet, Haditha, Anah, Rutba, Qaim, Nukheb, Najaf, and Fao). A significant positive trend appeared obviously in PRCPTOT and R95p with a rate of 0.1–4.6 and 0.5–2.7 mm per year, respectively. Additionally, the least trend increasing appeared in all precipitation days indices specifically in R10 and R20. Time series analyses revealed a positive trend in all regions under study, except SDII in the southern region. The most significant rate of change was noticed in regions one and two (northern and middle parts of Iraq), particularly for PRCPTOT and R95p 3.26 and 2.45 mm per day, respectively. Only the northern and eastern regions of Iraq experienced a high probability of significant extreme rainfall.

Evaluation of drought characteristics in Iraq by analysis annual growing season of Self-Calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (SC-PDSI) for three climatic zones using run theory method. The efficiency of SC-PDSI for drought monitoring was examined from compared with Rainfall Departure from the mean (RD) for three zones (Arid and Semi-Arid, Steppes and Desert) for the period 1981-2015, were derived from Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The spatial interpolation techniques in ArcGIS package has been used, to cover the whole extent of country and extracting the zones. Statistical methods were applied to compute the probability of drought events at every zone. The results showed the years 1999, 2000, 2008 and 2009 experienced droughts in all zones except the desert zone where was experienced severe drought in 2012, while the years 1982 and 1988 experienced received precipitation above-average in all zones. The values of standard deviation of precipitation were compared with precipitation anomalies for each zone, the drier seasons are (2007-2008) and (1998-1999) in all Zones. The wetter seasons are (1987-1988) in Arid and Semi-Arid and Steppes zone, (1994-1995) and (1997-1998) are wetter seasons in Desert zone. Using run theory, the steppes zone have experienced more severe droughts than other zones evaluated in this study and the most susceptible areas to dry spell are steppes and Arid and Semi-Arid Zones during study period. While the desert zone experienced less droughts.