Planning and operational flow forecasting of lesser Zaab River at Dokan Dam, Kurdistan Region, Iraq

Abstract EN

Flow forecasting is of paramount importance for efficient management of water resources.

information about availability of flows plays a pivotal role in making efficient decisions in water services operation and planning future water developments.

current study is aimed at understanding the behavior of lesser Zaab river flows at Dokan dam and forecast future flows accordingly for planning and operational purposes of water services.

lesser Zaab river is one of the main tributaries in Tigris river basin.

historical flow series data were collected from dam authorities and it is assumed that data follow normal distribution with no significant trend.

the first order Markov model for stationary time series was applied for mean annual flow forecasting.

the Markov model with periodicity is also applied for mean monthly flows forecasting.

forecasted data were compared with the observed flow series and found a close match between the two series, both for stationary and periodic flows.

based on the study, it can be recommended that the first order Markov model for stationary and periodic hydrologic time series can applied for forecasting with confidence.