Predicting vegetation phenology in response to climate change using bioclimatic indices in Iraq

Abstract

General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms AbstractAlthough most phenology models can analyze and predict future trends in response to climate change, these models often perform poorly in semi-arid regions where precipitation is limited. In this study, we modified an existing phenology model, the Growing Season Index (GSI), to better quantify relationships between weather and vegetation canopy dynamics across various semi-arid regions of Iraq. A modified GSI was created by adding a cumulative precipitation control to the existing GSI framework. Both unmodified and modified GSI values were calculated for three locations in Western Iraq: Sulaymaniyah in the north, Wasit in the centre and Basrah in the south as well as a country-wide mean and the running mean daily unmodified and modified GSI values for these study areas were calculated from 2001-2010 and compared to the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) for the same time period. Country-wide median inter-annual correlations between GSI and NDVI more than doubled with the addition of the precipitation control and within-site correlations also show substantial improvements. The modified model has a huge potential be used to predict future phenological responses to changing climatic conditions, as well as to reconstruct historical vegetation conditions. This study is important to understanding not only the Iraqi region as it considers the results of climatic and environmental changes that have taken place in recent decades, but it should improve vegetation phenological predictions across Iraq and other semiarid regions of the world, particularly in the face of rapid climate change and environmental deterioration.

Characterising the Land Surface Phenology of Middle Eastern Countries Using Moderate Resolution Landsat Data

“…Comparisons of the LSP parameter dates in this work with those from previous studies could improve our understanding of the spatial patterns of vegetation phenology across ME. Although several studies have used different approaches to investigate the vegetation phenology in different parts of ME, most of them are related to phenology trends or changes across time, rather than the characterisation of LSP parameters (73,72,63,70,65,2012,59,64,58,74,61,68,66,56,69,60,57,62,67,71). Therefore, a direct comparison between the results was not possible, but the overall phenological patterns presented in these studies were consistent with our findings.…”

“…In the ME as a whole, studies on LSP are limited or non-existent and are often concentrated on a single country as case-study investigations. For example, in Iraq despite the long ongoing political, social, and economic instabilities (and this is true for many of the ME countries) several studies have been conducted on spatio-temporal variations of phenological characteristics in relation to elevation [31], forecasting crop (e.g., wheat and barley) productions [56], climate change [57], phenometric-based classification of vegetation [58], and cultivated land change estimation based on crop phenology [59]. Similar studies have also been performed within the boundaries of the ME, such as in Iran [60][61][62], Turkey [63][64][65][66], Egypt [67,68], Jordan [69,70], Israel [71,72], Saudi Arabia [73], and northern Fertile Crescent [74].…”

Thermal bioclimatic indicators over Southeast Asia: present status and future projection using CMIP6

“…Bioclimatic indicators are increasingly being used to analyze the effects of climate change on bio-environments (Daham et al, 2018;Rehfeldt et al, 2015;Ribeiro et al, 2019).…”

Impact of irrigation management on crop water footprint reduction using RZWQM2 in Baghdad, Iraq

“…The summer season is long and extremely hot (sometimes the maximum temperature in July and August reaches 50 °C in the shade, with no precipitation). Whereas the winter season is short and cool (sometimes the minimum temperature in December and January becomes below zero °C) (Jaradat, 2003;Al-Ansari et al, 2014;Abbas et al, 2018;FAO, 2018;Daham et al, 2019).…”