Biophysical Impacts of Agricultural Lands on Land Surface Temperature in Karbala Province, Iraq

Haider T.   Naeem; Inbethaq M.  Abdulameer

doi:10.30526/39.4.4414

Authors

Haider T. Naeem Department of Physics, College of Education for Pure Science (Ibn Al-Haitham), University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq https://orcid.org/0009-0003-8067-3060
Inbethaq M. Abdulameer Department of Physics, College of Education for Pure Science (Ibn Al-Haitham), University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq https://orcid.org/0009-0004-4606-7910

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30526/39.4.4414

Keywords:

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Modified Urban Thermal Field Variance Index, Agriculture cover change, Land Surface Temperature

Abstract

Agricultural land cover plays a crucial role in regulating land surface temperature, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions such as Karbala Governorate, Iraq. This project focuses on the analysis of changes in spatio-temporal agricultural land in the period 2015 to 2025 and determines how the transformation of agricultural land affects land surface temperature (LST) in western Karbala, Iraq. From 2015 to 2025, agricultural lands will increase considerably with the total vegetation area rising from 32.65 km² in 2015 to 152.75 km² in 2025. Additionally, areas with excellent ecological conditions improved from 18.25 km² to 24.57 km², indicating enhanced environmental stability due to agricultural expansion. The LST trends from 2019 to 2025 show a decrease of approximately 3-4 degrees Celsius for both the center and western areas of this study region. Additionally, mean comparison shows that areas with moderate-to-dense agricultural cover have lower LST than sites with less-than-optimal vegetation. Therefore, a negative relationship between agricultural cover and LST exists. An ecological assessment indicated that there has been a gradual improvement of the vegetation quality of this region, from degraded conditions in 2015 to near-normal conditions in 2025, based upon calculations of vegetation classification and UTFVI values that were less than zero. These findings illustrate how the development of agricultural lands has a substantial impact on temperature intensity and other environmental conditions in arid and semi-arid regions

Author Biographies

Haider T. Naeem, Department of Physics, College of Education for Pure Science (Ibn Al-Haitham), University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq

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Inbethaq M. Abdulameer, Department of Physics, College of Education for Pure Science (Ibn Al-Haitham), University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq

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