Evaluation of land use changes with an emphasis on the water scarcity impacts and using remote sensing and GIS (case study: Babylon province, Iraq)

 the process of water scarcity in Iraq has intensified due to natural and political factors, especially in its central and southern parts. In this regard, the current research has evaluated the trend of land use and land cover changes in Babol province in the center of Iraq and analyzed the changes and developments in the surface water resources of this region. The current research is based on the supervised classification of satellite images of Babol Province, Iraq, and in this regard, ETM+ sensor images of Landsat 7 satellite in 2003, OLI-TIRS sensor images of Landsat 8 satellite in 2013 and Landsat 9 satellite in 2023 were used and the maximum likelihood technique was performed on them. According to the results, during the first ten-year period (2003-2013), the surface water area of the region has decreased from 729.44 square kilometers to 174.14 square kilometers, which means a 76.13% decrease in the area of this group of lands. In the second ten-year period (2013-2023), the extent of surface water has increased from 174.14 square kilometers to 825.61 square kilometers, which indicates a growth of 374.1 percent. The results of the research have determined that factors such as the development of agricultural lands, the growth of urban and rural constructions, and climatic factors have emerged as the main factors of land use change in Babol province, and the cause and origin of land use changes in Babol province is not only water shortage.