Environmental Remote Sensing and GIS in Iraq

This unique book focuses on remote sensing (RS) and geographical information systems (GIS) in Iraq. The environmental applications include monitoring and mapping soil salinity and prediction of soil properties, monitoring and mapping of land threats, proximal sensing for soil monitoring and soil fertility, spatiotemporal land use/cover, agricultural drought monitoring, hydrological applications including spatial rainfall distribution, surface runoff and drought control, geo-morphometric analysis and flood simulation, hydrologic and hydraulic modelling and the effective management of water resources. Also, this book assesses the impacts of climate change on natural resources using both RS and GIS, as well as other applications, covering different parts of Iraq. 

The book chapters include tens of maps extracted from the remotely sensed datasets, in addition to tables and statistical relations obtained from the results of the studies of the chapters' authors. These studies have been conducted in different parts of Iraq; in the north (Kurdistan region) with its mountainous and undulating lands, in western parts which have desert soils, and in central and southern Iraq where there are salty soils, dunes, wetlands, and marshes.

The book is written by distinguished scientists from Iraq, China, USA, Italy, Iran, Germany, and the Czech Republic who are interested in the Iraqi environment. The book is therefore a useful source of information and knowledge on Iraqi environment for graduate students, researchers, policy planners, and stakeholders in Iraq as well as similar regions.

Prof. Ayad Al-Quraishi is a professor of Environmental Remote Sensing & GIS and the head of the Environmental Engineering Department in College of Engineering, Knowledge University, Erbil, Iraq. He received his Ph.D. of Engineering in Geodetection and IT from the China University of Geosciences (CUG), Wuhan, China in 2004. He published more than 40 papers, and a reviewer for more than 20 international scientific journals, and participated as a scientific committee member, key speaker, participant in more than 30 international conferences and symposiums. He has more than 38 years in university teaching, scientific researching, and supervised more than 20 postgraduate students in Iraqi and international universities. He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Michigan state University, USA in 2011. His published paper on drought in Iraqi Kurdistan region has been selected as one of the best twenty papers on the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought in 2012. He is the Ambassador in Iraq of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (IEEE-GRSS) since 07/2016, as well as a member of several international scientific societies.

Prof. Abdelazim Negm is a professor of Water Resources at the Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Egypt, since 2004. He got his PhD in 1992 from Zagazig University (ZU) an his Msc from Ain shams University in the year 1990. He was the vice dean of the Faculty of Engineering of ZU from 12/2008 to 12/2011 and was the head of the Environmental Engineering Dept. at Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), Egypt 10/2013 to 9/2015. He participated in several international projects since 2006 until now. He published more than 300 papers in national and international journals and conferences. Some of his paper were a warded the prize of the best papers. He is the editor of several volumes in the Springer Handbook of Environmental Chemistry series (HEC series). Two volumes were published in May 2017 and one of them was within the top ten in water science for the year 2017. Also, the chapters of ten volumes were published during the years 2017/2018. He is a reviewer for more than 22 scientific journals and associate editor for a few journals. He is a member of the scientific committee of several international conferences.