Water scarcity is one of the factorslimiting plant growth and development. More than onethird of the global terrestrial ecosystemsis locatedinarid and semi-aridregions. Themost important limiting factor forplant growth is water shortage.Drought could significantly change the naturalvegetation cover. Rainfall reduction in Iraq, Turkey and Syria hasreducedvegetation cover so thatdust stormshave increased. Therefore,theseareas have a highpotential to increase dust particles in the environment. To investigate the temporal changes of vegetation,we focused on the source of dust particles between Tigris and Euphrates rivers and some partsof thewest bankoftheserivers in Iraq.The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) wasused.In addition, the standard precipitation index was calculated to assess drought events in the region. The results show that the vegetation and rainfall indexesare inversely correlated in the study area.
