The Evaluation of Flood Hazard of a Hypothetical Duhok Dam Failure

Duhok Dam is one of the considerable hydraulic structures in the northern Iraq, located northwest of Duhok city. It is an earth-fill embankment dam, standing 60.5 meters high with a reservoir capacity of approximately 52,000,000 m3. It performs a crucial role in irrigation, water supply and flood control. However, due to its geological and hydrological patterns, it has been selected as a case study to assess flood hazards resulting from a hypothetical dam failure, with its direct effect on Duhok city. In this study, Watershed Modelling System (WMS) was used to simulate a theoretical failure of Duhok Dam. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the Duhok Dam break and its discharge reaching the Mosul Dam reservoir. A single failure scenario is considered, corresponding to the normal water level of 615.75 m.a.s.l. The simulation results indicate that Duhok city would experience severe flooding. The peak flood discharge at the door to Duhok city is estimated to reach 40977 m³/s, at the coordinate system of (36°52'02.5"N 43°00'07.0" E). Within 21 minutes of the dam failure.