The Drought Hazard and Drought Risk Indices for Mandawa Basins in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region
Volume 12 , Issue 1 , December 2025 , Pages 147-162
Authors
Zhian Abdulrahman Ahmed 1 ; Jehan Mohammed Fattah Sheikhsuleimany 2
1 Department of Water Resources Engineering, College of Engineering, Salahaddin University-Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
2 Department of Water Resources Engineering, College of Engineering, Salahaddin University-Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
10.17656/sjes.102006
Keywords
Abstract
Drought is a global environmental disaster with wide-ranging impacts. This work uses different drought indicators to assess the areas prone to hydrological drought of the Mandawa basin with in Iraqi Kurdistan Region. Other trends were found in the drought hazard study utilizing meteorological drought indices. According to the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) -based Drought Hazard Index (DHI), the mild, moderate, severe, and extreme drought hazard categories accounted for 16.93%, 39.03%, 25.54%, and 18.45% of the total watershed area, respectively. While the SPEI-DHI map showed that these categories account for 33.63%, 20.52%, 37.39%, and 8.45%, respectively. The Drought Risk Index (DRI) map results for both SPI and SPEI revealed that the majority of the study area falls into the low and very low drought risk categories, accounting for 70% and 50% for SPI-DRI and SPEI-DRI, respectively. The SPEI-DRI determined that 23.17% of the study area is in the high drought risk category, which is twice the area determined by the SPI-DRI. However, this index was more sensitive in determining the very high drought risk category, which accounts for 14%.