Flow characteristics of Tigris river within Baghdad city during drought

Abstract EN

The main source of water supply in Iraq is the surface water, especially Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and their tributaries.

In the recent years there was a great drop in the water levels of Tigris River within Baghdad City which had affected the operation of twelve water supply projects located on the banks of Tigris River in Baghdad City, due to significant climate changes, and the expansion of hydraulic construction (dams) and implementation of new irrigation projects in Turkey, these factors have greatly reduced the water flowrates of river by about 46%.

In the present study the flow characteristics of Tigris River within Baghdad City was studied, the reach involved was about 49km in which it represents the urban zone beginning from the north of the Baghdad City at Al-Muthana Bridge to the confluence of Tigris River with the Diyala River south of Baghdad, using steady flow one-dimensional hydraulic model to achieve raising of water levels within this reach during drought periods.

This model was implemented using HEC-RAS software.

Three sets of observation data were used to calibrate the model to estimate suitable Manning roughness coefficient (n) considering the root mean square error (RSME) as an accurate indicator.

The results showed that n of value 0.

032 for the main river bed and 0.

040 for flood banks of the river gave the best results with minimum RMSE of 0.

076.

Several treatments were suggested such as construction of barrage, inflatable weir, and the use of obstruction for the purpose of raising water levels.

Moreover, selection of the suitable site of these treatments or hydraulic structures was studied, as well as their cost was analyzed.

The results show that the proper solution for maintain the required water levels that ensure continuous operation of water supply project was the construction of an inflatable weirs, due to low initial cost, simplicity of operation, their ability to inflate and deflate quickly and easily to prevent upstream flooding, and offering a high level of control and easy method for recapturing water.