Iraq territory as a whole and south of Iraq in particular encountered rapid desertification and signs of severe land degradation in the last decades. Both natural and anthropogenic factors are responsible for the extent of desertification. Remote sensing data and image analysis tools were employed to identify, detect, and monitor desertification in Basra governorate. Different remote sensing indicators and image indices were applied in order to better identify the desertification development in the study area, including the Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Salinity index (SI), Top Soil Grain Size Index (GSI) , Land Surface Temperature (LST) , Land Surface Soil Moisture (LSM), and La

Uranium concentrations in soil were determined for ten locations in Salahdin governorate using CR-39 track detector, fission fragments track technique was used, the nuclear reaction of nuclear fission fragments obtained by the bombardment of 235U with thermal neutrons from (Am-Be) neutron source with flux (5000n.cm-2.s-1), the concentration values were calculated by a comparison with standard samples. The results of the measurements show that the uranium concentration in soil samples various from 0.42±0.018ppm in Beji province to 0.2±0.014 ppm in Tooz province with an average (0.31±0.08ppm), the values of uranium concentration in all samples are within the permissible limits universally.

ANN modeling is used here to predict missing monthly precipitation data in one station of the eight weather stations network in Sulaimani Governorate. Eight models were developed, one for each station as for prediction. The accuracy of prediction obtain is excellent with correlation coefficients between the predicted and the measured values of monthly precipitation ranged from (90% to 97.2%). The eight ANN models are found after many trials for each station and those with the highest correlation coefficient were selected. All the ANN models are found to have a hyperbolic tangent and identity activation functions for the hidden and output layers respectively, with learning rate of (0.4) and momentum term of (0.9), but with different data

The trichomes and chemical composition of three species of the genus Salvia wild-grown (Salvia lanigera, Salvia spinosa) and cultured (Salvia officinalis) were studied in the Anbar governate, the chemical components of the stem and leaves were studied by Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry(GC-MS), in addition to studying the trichomes of the epidermis in the stem and leaves (upper and lower epidermis) by Light microscope. Important differences appeared to us in the chemical study, where it was found that some compounds were found in species without others, which gives them taxonomic importance, also, the trichomes were important in distinguishing the studied species, the species S. spinosa was distinguished by the presence of gla

There is currently a significantly larger concentration of toxins in our environment than there was in the past. This is mostly attributable to the expansion of modern industry. This investigation was conducted in order to investigate various haematological and biochemical changes in order to determine the effects of Cd on the liver and kidney. Because of its long biological half-life, it is considered hazardous to human health. The effect of sub-lethal doses (40, 80 and 120 mg\Kg) of Cadmium (Cd) on male mice were evaluated for 4 weeks, and analysis was done to estimate their biochemical parameters and antioxidant enzymes. The results showed that Cd-treated mice had considerably lower packed cell volume, red blood cells, and haemoglobin. W

In this study, four sampling stations were selected on the Tigris River (Baghdad region) in order to determine concentrations, seasonal variation and pollution intensity assessment of heavy metals (Cd, Zn and Mn) in water, sediments and Barbus xanthpterus fish in this river. The study results showed that the mean concentration of dissolved heavy metals (cadmium, zinc and manganese) were 0.004 ppm, 0.023 ppm and 0.007 ppm, respectively. Whereas, their concentrations in sediments were 1.38 ppm, 86 ppm and 231.4 ppm respectively. Irregular seasonal variation for concentrations of these metals in both sediments and water. The mean concentration of these metals in tissues of fish muscles were 0.0043 ppm, 0.0023 ppm and 0.03 ppm for cadmium, z

     Ground water is a vital source for agricultural sector and rural communities. The global climate change is expected to change the hydrometeorological processes parameters. The climate considered as part of the southern Iraqi desert general climate with long, extremely hot, and dry summer and short wet period with little rain.  So it is vital to investigate the groundwater quality for irrigation purposes. The meteorological data of Samawa meteorological station for the period 1980-2015 was used to evaluate the climatic conditions for Muthana Governorate. It was found that the averages of annual rainfall was 105.7mm and the everages of evaporation is 3182 mm, while the mean monthly relative humidity % , mean t

In any natural area or water body, evapotranspiration is one of the main outcomes in the water balance equation. It is also a crucial component of the hydrologic cycle and considers as the main requirement in the planning and designing of any irrigation project. The climatic parameters for the Ishaqi area are calculated from the available date of Samarra and Al-Khlais meteorological stations according to a method for the period (1982–2017) according to Fetter method. The results of the mean of rainfall, relative humidity temperature, evaporation, sunshine, and wind speed of the Ishaqi area are 171.96 mm, 49.67%, 24.86 C°, 1733.61 mm, 8.34 h/day, and 2.3 m/sec, respectively. Values of Potential Evapotranspiration are determined by

     Rainwater harvesting is one of the available solutions to overcome water scarcity in arid and semi-arid regions with highly variable rainfall and unexpected periods of drought or floods. This study aims to identify the best rainwater harvesting system in Al-Muthanna governorate using Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. Landsat 8 images were used to produce the land use map which shows five different classes: water (0.2%), bare soil (82.11%), built-up (15.71%), forest (0.27%), and farmland and grass (1.71%). The results revealed that the rainwater harvesting system can be applied only in the north and north-eastern parts of the study area which consists of residential and agricultural areas and