Environmental resource management

Geology

Climate change

Pathology

Desert (philosophy)

Desertification

Biology

Physical geography

Oceanography

Epistemology

Land degradation

Civil engineering

Engineering

Philosophy

Arid

Paleontology

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index

Geography

Ecology

Vegetation (pathology)

Land use

Environmental science

Geographic information system

Remote sensing

Medicine

Rainwater harvesting

Advances in Civil Engineering

Currently, desertification is a major problem in the western desert of Iraq. The harsh nature, remoteness, and size of the desert make it difficult and expensive to monitor and mitigate desertification. Therefore, this study proposed a comprehensive and cost‐effective method, via the integration of geographic information systems (GISs) and remote sensing (RS) techniques to estimate the potential risk of desertification, to identify the most vulnerable areas and determine the most appropriate sites for rainwater conservation. Two indices, namely, the Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Land Degradation Index (LDI), were used for a cadastral assessment of land degradation. The findings of the combined rainwater harvesting appropriateness map, and the maps of NDVI and LDI changes found that 65% of highly suitable land for rainwater harvesting lies in the large change and 35% lies in the small change of NDVI, and 85% of highly suitable land lies in areas with a moderate change and 12% lies in strong change of LDI. The adoption of the weighted linear combination (WLC) and Boolean methods within the GIS environment, and the analysis of NDVI with LDI changes can allow hydrologists, decision‐makers, and planners to quickly determine and minimize the risk of desertification and to prioritize the determination of suitable sites for rainwater harvesting.

Minimizing the Impacts of Desertification in an Arid Region: A Case Study of the West Desert of Iraq