Attachments
Foreword
Knowing how to use the land, the level of green cover and the amount of surface water in the Kurdistan region is one of the most important information for now and for the future based on which government makes many decisions.
No doubt, many changes happened in terms of urbanization and reduction of land used for agricultural purposes, and Kurdistan region is constantly faced with water problem for drinking or for agriculture due to climate change, which had a great impact on livelihood in general.
In this regard, Kurdistan Region Statistics Office (KRSO) worked to obtain this information during the past 12 months relying on the human resources of KRSO in the Department of Geographical Information system (GIS) and Salaheddin University in Erbil using modern technology to reduce costs and time. This work was done with the support of the World Food Programme (WFP). this work is presented in details in this report for decision-makers to get benefit from.
Fortunately, instead of buying expensive satellite images, the Salahuddin University team used new methods and trained the staff of KRSO to continue updating data and information to benefit the relevant authorities such as the Ministries of Municipalities and Tourism, Agriculture and Water Resources, Board of Environment Protection and preservation and many other parties.
It is a great honor that this work was successfully done for the first time in Iraq, for this reason, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Central Statistical organization of Iraq (CSO) requested the same work to be done jointly with KRSO at the national level.
This report contains important details such as classification of types of land using in terms of agriculture, vegetation, buildings and other types of land cover based on which current and future plans can be done and suitable agricultural land can be best used to provide food security and the right way of using water resources to reduce water waste.
Here, | would like to thank the team of Salaheddin University for their efforts and hard work with us to successfully implement the project. | would like also to thank the World Food Programme (WFP) for their financial support to conduct this work. | would like to thank the staff of KRSO in the Geographical Information System department and statistical directorates for field auditing at the level of governorates to ensure the accuracy of the satellite images.
At the end, we hope that the relevant parties in Kurdistan Region Government to take more advantage of this information as _ an Opportunity to build agricultural and environmental infrastructure in the future and working for its sustainability.
Serwan Muhammad Muhyiddin President of KRSO