Seasonal and Annual Changes of Rainfall in Iraq During the Period from 1992 to 2010

Abstract

Iraq is suffering from severe drought, a feature inherent in its changing climatic conditions. Water shortage has a negative impact on agricultural land and is associated with high desertification risk. Thus, the determination of moisture conditions over a multi-year period represents a difficult issue. In this paper, monthly and annual precipitation figures from 20 meteorological stations in Iraq were analyzed to provide insight into the seasonal and annual variations of annual changes and time trends in rainfall during the period 1992-2010. The Mann-Kendall non-ranking test was applied to trend detection in the annual series and the Kendall-Theil line was used to measure its size. The Mann-Kendall test scores show negative values for all stations and this confirms the trend of climate change towards scarcity of rainfall. Most stations show a high level of significance over 95%, while a drying signal was detected at the stations of Amara, Baghdad and Saladin only. The rate of change in Iraq is 3.5% of the average annual precipitation calculated for the years 1992-2010.