Feasibility of using small dams in water harvesting, Northern Iraq

Iraq is experiencing water-resource shortages which are expected to become more severe in the future. Water harvesting techniques (WH) will definitely help to overcome or minimize the effect of this problem. Two areas (northwestern and northeastern part of Iraq) were tested for the feasibility of WH using small dams not more than 6m height. The locations of the dams and reservoirs were selected depending on the drainage area, the cross section of the valley (to ensure minimum construction material to be used for building the dams) and to minimize evaporation losses and insure the required storage was obtained; the ratio of surface area to storage volume was kept to a minimum. Watershed modeling system (WMS) and linear programming (LP) optimization techniques were applied to maximize the irrigated area, which could be supplied by each selected reservoir for the period 1990–2009.In northeastern part of Iraq, the technique was applied in Erbil and Sulaimaniyah. In the former, 22 dams (catchment areas ranged between 3.34 to 111.63 km2) were tested. While in the latter, five separated dams were used with total catchment area of 176.79 km2. Their area ranged between 7.35 to 98.08 km2. In northwestern part of Iraq, the technique was applied in Sinjar Mountain. At northern Sinjar Mountain, ten dams were selected, their catchment area ranged between 43.48 to197.7 km2.The results obtained from all areas were encouraging.Godkänd; 2015; 20150720 (nadhir