Droughts are a major problem in Iraq especially in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands where they are frequent and causes a great deal of suffering and loss. Drought monitoring and forecasting requires extensive climate and meteorological data which is usually largely missing in developing countries or not available in the required spatial and temporal resolutions. In this study, the drought categories were defined for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2017 using the TRMM data to map the spatiotemporal meteorological drought, and the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) to analyze the meteorological drought at 11 stations located in Western Iraq. The SPI analyses were performed on 12-month datasets for five years. The results showed that the northeast region has the higher rainfall indices and the southwest region has the lowest rainfall. An analysis of the drought and rain conditions showed that the quantity of extreme drought events was higher than that expected in the study area, especially in the south and southwest areas. Therefore, an alternate classification is proposed to describe the drought, which spatially classifies the drought type as mild, moderate, severe and extreme. In conclusion, the integration between TRMM data SPI data proved to be an effective tool to map the spatial distribution and drought assessment in the study area.

This paper aim to select the best site to drill a groundwater wells by using of Geographic Information System (GIS) as a tool for decision-making. The study conducted in Fadak farm in Bahr Al-Najaf which is located west and southwest of Najaf city, and extends more than (40 km) away from it, to drill a new wells for irrigations usages. The optimal location selected depending on the available hydrogeophysical data includes resistivity, depth, thickness and transmissivity of aquifer. The weighted factor maps generated for the evidence layers were given weights depending on the significance of each parameter, these parameters were integrated in GIS to precisely to find the preferable sites. Finally, region was divided in to three classes; good medium, and bad according to the importance of each input factors using an overly combing method.

This study aims to estimate the accuracy of digital elevation models (DEM) which are created with exploitation of open source Google Earth data and comparing with the widely available DEM datasets, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), version 3, and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER GDEM), version 2. The GPS technique is used in this study to produce digital elevation raster with a high level of accuracy, as reference raster, compared to the DEM datasets. Baghdad University, Al Jadriya campus, is selected as a study area. Besides, 151 reference points were created within the study area to evaluate the results based on the values of RMS.Furthermore, the Geographic Information System (GIS) was utilized to analyze, imagine and interpolate data in this study. The result of the statistical analysis revealed that RMSE of DEM related to the differences between the reference points and Google Earth, SRTM DEM and ASTER GDEM are 6.9, 5.5 and 4.8, respectively. What is more, a finding of this study shows convergence the level of accuracy for all open sources used in this study.

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