Determining the impact of climatic elements on vegetation cover based on remote sensing data - (Al-Hamdaniya district as a case study)

Abstract

Climate is one of the most important factors responsible for changing vegetation cover. The climatic changes for each season determine the area and density of vegetation cover. These changes affecting the vegetation cover can be traced and their causes identified using satellite imagery which are provide a huge archive of data covering large areas of the earth at different times and the possibility of obtaining them easily and processing them using digital processing methods to extract information. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is the most important indicator adopted in the identification of pixels, which expresses the nature of changes in vegetation cover and the estimation of its prevalence in any season chosen. In the current study, some of the climatic factors affecting the variation of vegetation cover were studied in the district of Hamdaniya, which is administratively located in the Nineveh Governorate. The extent of the spread of the vegetation was determined and its area was estimated in the study area as well as, the statistical analysis was applied to the climatic elements of the same season by applying some of the multiple regression equations and predictions to determine the nature and degree of that effect. The results revealed the presence of more than one climatic element that affects the variance of vegetation cover during the fall season of the rainy years (2013 - 2019). The actual solar radiation, minimum temperature, relative humidity, and wind were the most important factors affecting the variance in vegetation cover, and they