Climatic Drought Trends and Future Scenarios in Iraq
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31185/wjfh.Vol22.Iss3/Pt1.1909Keywords:
Climatic drought, SPEI-12, CMIP6, Iraq, SSP scenariosAbstract
Drought is a major challenge associated with global warming due to its direct impacts on water resources and agriculture, particularly in Iraq, which lies within arid and semi-arid regions. This study assesses future drought trends using the SPEI-12 index based on outputs from two CMIP6 models (GFDL-ESM4 and ACCESS-CM2) under four SSP scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5) for the periods 2025–2060 and 2061–2096, compared with 1990–2024. Results show a statistically significant downward trend in SPEI-12 (−0.55 per decade), indicating increasing water deficit due to declining precipitation and rising temperatures. Under SSP5-8.5, strong negative trends dominate, indicating intensified and thermally driven drought. Moderate conditions decline while severe drought increases, reflecting a shift toward more extreme conditions. Spatially, the strongest trends occur in central and southern Iraq, while northern regions show weaker responses. These findings highlight the need for effective adaptation strategies, particularly in water resource management.
Downloads
References
البديري، أحمد لفتة حمد. (2021a). أثر التغيرات المناخية على الجفاف في محافظة واسط. مجلة واسط للعلوم الإنسانية، 17(47)، 611-638. https://iasj.rdd.edu.iq/journals/journal/issue/8016.
البديري، أحمد لفتة حمد. (2021b). اتجاهات التغير في درجات الحرارة والأمطار في العراق وإسقاطاتها المستقبلية. مجلة الآداب، 3(137)، 443-472. https://doi.org/10.31973/aj.v3i137.1129
رافد صالح مهدي الخالدي. (2025). تحليل تأثير التغير المناخي على الخصائص الكمية للأمطار والجفاف اليومية في العراق. مجلة واسط للعلوم الانسانية, 21(2), 227-193. https://doi.org/10.31185/wjfh.Vol21.Iss2.895
Adamo, N., Al-Ansari, N., Sissakian, V., Jehad Fahmi, K., & Ali Abed, S. (2022). Climate change: Droughts and increasing desertification in the Middle East, with special reference to Iraq. Engineering, 14(7), 235–273.
Agnew, C. T. (2000). Using the SPI to identify drought. Drought Network News, 12(1), 6-12. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/droughtnetnews/1
Al-Ansari, N. (2021). Topography and climate of Iraq. Journal of Earth Sciences and Geotechnical Engineering, 11(2), 1–13.
Al-Hussein, A. A. M., Khalil, S. A., & Ali, B. M. (2026). Assessment of meteorological drought based on CMIP6 multi-model ensemble projections in Iraq. Climatic Change, 179(2), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-026-04123-6
Al-Bedairi, A. L. H. (2021a). The impact of climate change on drought in Wasit Governorate. Wasit Journal of Humanities Sciences, 17(47), 611-638.
Al-Bedairi, A. L. H. (2021b). Trends of changes in temperature and rainfall in Iraq and their future projections. Journal of Arts, 3(137), 443-472. https://doi.org/10.31973/aj.v3i137.1129
Al-Khalidi, R. S. M. (2025). Analysis of the impact of climate change on the quantitative characteristics of daily rainfall and drought in Iraq. Wasit Journal for Human Sciences, 21(2), 193–227. https://doi.org/10.31185/wjfh.Vol21.Iss2.895
Balting, D. F. (2021). Northern Hemisphere drought risk in a warming climate. 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-021-00218-2
Barlow, M., Zaitchik, B., Paz, S., Black, E., Evans, J., & Hoell, A. (2016). A review of drought in the Middle East and southwest Asia. Journal of Climate, 29(23), 8547–8574.
Chen, H., Sun, J., Lin, W., & Xu, H. (2020). Comparison of CMIP6 and CMIP5 models in simulating climate extremes. Science Bulletin, 65(17), 1415–1418.
Collins, M. (2017). Still weighting to break the model democracy. Geophysical Research Letters, 44(7), 3328–3329.
Cook, B. I., & Mankin, J. S. (2019). Twenty-first century drought projections in the CMIP6 forcing scenarios. Earth's Future, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EF001461
Cook, B. I., Mankin, J. S., & Anchukaitis, K. J. (2018). Climate change and drought: From past to future. [بيانات ناقصة].
Cook, B. I., Mankin, J. S., Marvel, K., Williams, A. P., Smerdon, J. E., & Anchukaitis, K. J. (2020). Twenty‐first century drought projections in the CMIP6 forcing scenarios. Earth’s Future, 8(6), e2019EF001461.
Gidden, M. J., Riahi, K., Smith, S. J., Fujimori, S., Luderer, G., Kriegler, E., Van Vuuren, D. P., Van Den Berg, M., Feng, L., & Klein, D. (2019). Global emissions pathways under different socioeconomic scenarios for use in CMIP6: A dataset of harmonized emissions trajectories through the end of the century. Geoscientific Model Development, 12(4), 1443–1475.
Grose, M. R., Narsey, S., Delage, F. P., Dowdy, A. J., Bador, M., Boschat, G., Chung, C., Kajtar, J. B., Rauniyar, S., & Freund, M. B. (2020). Insights from CMIP6 for Australia’s future climate. Earth’s Future, 8(5), e2019EF001469.
Gusain, A., Ghosh, S., & Karmakar, S. (2020). Added value of CMIP6 over CMIP5 models in simulating Indian summer monsoon rainfall. Atmospheric Research, 232, 104680.
Hamed, M. M., Sammen, S. S., Nashwan, M. S., & Shahid, S. (2023). Spatiotemporal variation of drought in Iraq for shared socioeconomic pathways. Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment, 37(4), 1321–1331. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-022-02343-7
IPCC. (2021). Climate change 2021: The physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2(1), 2391.
Kenawy, A. M. El, McCabe, M. F., & Robaa, S. M. (2016). Changes in the frequency and severity of hydrological droughts over Ethiopia from 1960 to 2013. Cuadernos de Investigación Geográfica, 42(1), 145-166. https://doi.org/10.18172/cig.2931
Li, H., Li, Z., Chen, Y., Xiang, Y., Liu, Y., & Kayumba, P. M. (2021). Drylands face potential threat of robust drought in the CMIP6 SSPs scenarios. [بيانات ناقصة].
McKee, T. B., Doesken, N. J., & Kleist, J. (1993). The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scales. Proceedings of the 8th Conference on Applied Climatology, 17(22), 179–183.
Mishra, A. K., & Singh, V. P. (2010). A review of drought concepts. Journal of Hydrology, 391(1–2), 202–216.
Moeletsi, M. E., Walker, S., & Hamandawana, H. (2013). Comparison of the Hargreaves and Samani equation and the Thornthwaite equation for estimating dekadal evapotranspiration in the Free State Province, South Africa. *Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C, 66*, 4–15.
Muslih, K. D., & Abbas, A. M. (2024). Climate of Iraq. In The Geography of Iraq (pp. 19–47). Springer.
Nielsen, M., Cook, B. I., Marvel, K., Ting, M., & Smerdon, J. E. (2024). The changing influence of precipitation on soil moisture drought with warming in the Mediterranean and western North America. Earth’s Future, 12(5), e2023EF003987.
Salman, S. A., Shahid, S., Ismail, T., Ahmed, K., Chung, E.-S., & Wang, X.-J. (2019). Characteristics of annual and seasonal trends of rainfall and temperature in Iraq. *Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, 55*(3), 429–438.
Salman, S. A., Shahid, S., Ismail, T., Chung, E.-S., & Al-Abadi, A. M. (2017). Long-term trends in daily temperature extremes in Iraq. Atmospheric Research, 198, 97–107.
Seneviratne, S. I., Zhang, X., Adnan, M., Badi, W., Dereczynski, C., Luca, A. Di, Ghosh, S., Iskandar, I., Kossin, J., & Lewis, S. (2021). Weather and climate extreme events in a changing climate. In Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis (pp. 1513–1766). Cambridge University Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Asst. Prof. Ahmed Lafta Hamad Al-Budeiri
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
