Kurdistan Region dams, reservoirs reach full capacity after heavy rains: Official

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Water levels in almost all of the Kurdistan Region’s 25 dams, along with nearly 180 artificial ponds, have reached full capacity, the head of Erbil’s dam authority told Rudaw on Tuesday, noting that water storage in the Region has exceeded nine billion cubic meters.

Abdulrahman Khani, the director-general of dams and water reservoirs for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) under the agriculture and water resources ministry, said that “with the exception of two dams - the Dukan Dam in [the Region’s eastern] Sulaimani province and the Gomaspan Dam in Erbil, all dams and ponds in the Kurdistan Region have filled up and their water has exceeded their storage capacity.”

The Kurdistan Region has 25 dams and 178 artificial ponds used to store water annually.

According to Khani, “the amount of water stored in dams and artificial ponds this year has exceeded 9 billion cubic meters,” noting that the Darbandikhan Dam in Sulaimani currently holds around three billion cubic meters of water, while the dam of the Region’s northern Duhok province is storing more than 50 million cubic meters.

As for the Dukan Dam, he added that “it is only 1.15 meters away from being full and overflowing.” 

Heavy rainfall has significantly boosted groundwater resources in the Kurdistan Region. As of early May, 719 millimetres were recorded in Erbil city centre, 1,054 millimetres in Sulaimani, 921 millimetres in Duhok, and 1,109 kilometers in the eastern Halabja province, according to the Region’s meteorological authority.

Meanwhile, rainfall in mountainous areas has been notably higher, with Erbil’s northernmost Mergasor district recording 2,140 millimetres in late April.

Iraq and the Kurdistan Region also heavily rely on water releases from upstream countries, particularly Turkey. 

Aoun Diab, Iraq’s former water minister, said in late April that water flows from Turkey into the Tigris at the Peshkhabur area [northwest of Iraq] “have exceeded 2,500 cubic meters per second, which is considered a strong flow rate.”

The minister also highlighted a “slight increase" in the Euphrates River, estimated at approximately 400 cubic meters per second, adding that releases at the Syrian-Turkish border have exceeded 1,000 cubic meters per second. 

The World Resources Institute in late 2023 classified Iraq among 25 countries facing “extreme water stress,” meaning it consumes more than 80 percent of its available water resources, leaving it highly vulnerable to prolonged drought conditions.