SPATIOTEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF RELATIVE HUMIDITY USING GIS, IDW INTERPOLATION METHOD AND MANN-KENDAL TEST FOR KURDISTAN REGION OF IRAQ

The spatial and temporal analysis of Relative humidity is very important for climatic variability. Seasonal and annual data for 8 meteorological stations in the Kurdistan region of Iraq (1992-2020) were analyzed to determine the significant trends and magnitude of RH using the Mann-Kendall test and Sens slope with the GIS interpolation method. The spatial analysis shows that the highest values were recorded at the Pirmam station with values of (71.40%) and (52.91%) in the winter season and annual data respectively, while the lowest value was recorded at Akre station of (19.21%) and (41.83%) in summer season and annual data respectively. According to the temporal variations of RH, the significant decreasing trends are found at Akre station at the different confidence levels with the lowest value of (-0.996%/yr) at the 95% confidence level during the winter season. However, in the Erbil, Chamchamal, and Sulaymaniyah stations, substantial positive increasing trends were identified, Chamchamal station has the highest value of (0.780 %/yr) at the 95% confidence level in the winter season. The annual RH trends indicated that Akre, Duhok, Erbil, Chamchamal, and Sulaymaniyah revealed significant increasing and decreasing trends at different confidence levels, Akre station has the maximum dropping trend with the value of (-0.858 %/yr), on the other hand, the maximum rising RH trends of (0.500%/yr) detected at Chamchamal station.