Modeling the impact of land use changes on the trend of monthly temperature in Basrah province, Southern Iraq

The current study aims to analyze the trend of monthly average temperature in Basrah province to understand the role of land use changes in this pattern. Data which was recorded at Hay Al-Hussain station in the city of Basrah over a span of 74 years (1948–2022) were utilized for this purpose. The non-parametric Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimator were used to estimate the trend and the magnitude of the trend, respectively. Findings revealed that the average temperature trend is increasing at a rate of 0.00475 °C/month (4.218 °C in total). This indicates that Basrah is experiencing a faster temperature increase than the global average (1 °C) and the Middle East region (2 °C). Five main factors contributed to the temperature rise in the study area: increasing oil fields, reduction of green cover, global warming, urban expansion, and wetland shrinkage. Furthermore, the study revealed that the impact of changes in land use outweighs the effect of global warming on the temperature rise in the study area. This finding could facilitate the implementation of measures to reduce the warming rate within Basrah and other regions inside and outside Iraq, for the purpose of adapting to the climate change effects that are already occurring. This can be achieved by controlling unplanned changes in land use and minimizing their negative effects on the increase of temperature.