Agriculture Business Course

Crop and livestock production have since plummeted, impacting vulnerable communities that have been affected by conflict and displacement over the last several years. At least seven million people in Iraq have been affected by the drought in recent times. In this context, it is very important to implement and plan drought mitigation measures for the farmers in order to prepare them to adapt to these extreme events. Remote sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques offer opportunity to set up monitoring systems to periodically inform about drought severities in near real time and also predict for near future. These techniques are being widely used for the analysis of drought monitoring and assessment using various types of drought. Further, the Meteorological data from the ground stations can be a good source of information that can be used for agricultural drought assessment. However, lack of spatial and temporal distribution of weather stations makes it difficult to make a reliable assessment and risk mapping, hence remotely sensed satellite data is a reliable alternative to monitor and assess the drought events. Drought is a natural hazard that significantly impacts various aspects (i.e. economic, agricultural, environmental, and social), which is a common feature of Iraq's climate. Recently, remote sensing (RS) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have been widely adopted to evaluate different types of drought.