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Drought is among the most severe natural calamities induced by lack of water, having a negative implication on water resources and agriculture in the affected area. Drought types and severity vary by location, so understanding the spatial distribution can aid in developing measures to overcome this natural hazard. In this study, the areas vulnerable to droughts in the Mandawa watershed in the Kurdistan region of Iraq were determined by employing seven associated factors: rainfall, temperature, LULC, surfaceslope, soil texture, elevation, and distance to rivers. Satellite imagery of Landsat 8 OLI for 2021was employed to create the Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) and distance to rivers maps. The elevation and surface slope maps have been generated from the Digital Elevation Modelat 30 m resolution, soil texture map was extracted from The FAO Digital Soil Map of the Worldand the inverse distance weighting method was utilized to interpolate the rainfall and temperature throughout the watershed. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)was used to create a pairwise compression matrix to obtain the weight of each parameter. In the Geographic Information System (GIS)environment, the combined impact of affecting factors was utilized to create the area's drought zonation map. The results indicated that only 5.2% and 13.8% of the study area is vulnerable to extreme and severe droughts, respectively. While more than 35% of the watershed is hardly vulnerable to droughts.

Background and objective: Patients on blood transfusion may develop complications related to iron overload and the effects of chelating agents (drugs), which adversely affect the liver in thalassemia, which is a genetic blood disorder of hemoglobin synthesis that causes severe anemia. This study aimed to assess the effect of deferasirox and deferoxamine drugs on liver enzyme activities (aspartate transaminase, alanine transaminase, and alkaline phosphatase), and serum ferritin level in β_thalassemic patients. Methods: This study was carried out in Erbil city from October 2017 to February 2018. Blood specimens were collected in Hawler thalassemia center and Raparin hospital. The samples included 105 individuals; 70 β-thalassemic patients (35 treated by deferasirox as group A and 35 treated by deferoxamine as group B), and 35 healthy individuals (control group C). Results: The serum aspartate transaminase and alkaline phosphatase activities in β-thalassemic patients were higher than that of controls. The serum alanine transaminase activity in the patients' groups showed non-significant elevation than that of controls. The serum ferritin level in the patients was significantly higher than that of controls. Conclusion: Our finding showed that both deferasirox and deferoxamine drugs affect liver enzymes and increase ferritin level.