Mosul Dam: Is it the Most Dangerous Dam in the World?
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Mosul Dam: Is it the Most Dangerous Dam in the World? Nadhir Al-Ansari . Nasrat Adamo . Sven Knutsson . Jan Laue . Varoujan Sissakian
Received: 9 June 2017 / Accepted: 11 May 2020 Ó The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Mosul Dam is an earth fill dam, with a storage capacity of 11.11 km3 constructed on highly karstified gypsum beds alternating with marl and limestone. After impounding in 1986, seepage locations were recognized. The dam situation now indicates that it is in a state of extreme relative risk. If it fails, then 6 million people will be affected and 7202 km2 area will be flooded. Grouting operations will elongate the life of the dam but will not solve the problem. Building a protection dam downstream will be the best measures to secure the safety of the downstream area and its’ population. Keywords
Mosul Dam Tigris river Iraq
N. Al-Ansari (&) N. Adamo S. Knutsson J. Laue Lulea University of Technology, 971 87 Lulea˚, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] N. Adamo e-mail: [email protected] S. Knutsson e-mail: [email protected] J. Laue e-mail: [email protected] V. Sissakian University of Kurdistan, Hewler, KRG, Iraq e-mail: [email protected]
1 Introduction Mosul Dam is located on the Tigris River in North Western part of Iraq; approximately 60 km northwest of Mosul city (Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources 2012) (Fig. 1). Mosul Dam is one of the most important strategic projects in Iraq for management of its water resources. Construction of Mosul Dam began on January 25th, 1981 and started operating on July 7th, 1986. The dam is a multipurpose project to provide water for three irrigation projects, flood control and hydropower generation. The dam is 113 m high and 3650 m long including the spillway. The top width is 10 m at the 341 m (a.s.l.) crest level. The dam is an earth fill type with a mud core. The upstream side is faced with rock (Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources 2012). The dam was designed to impound 11.11 km3 of water at the normal operation level, including 8.16 and 2.95 km3 of live and dead storage respectively (Fig. 2). The dam has a concrete spillway located on the left abutment. The weir crest elevation of the spillway is 317.5 m (a.s.l.) and its length is 680 m. The spillway has five radial gates measuring 13.5 m 9 13.5 m giving a discharge of 12,600 m3 sec-1 at the maximum reservoir level of 338 m (a.s.l.) (Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources, 2012). The total cost of Mosul Dam estimated at 2.6 billion US$ at the prices level of 1980s. After impounding in 1986, seepage locations were recognized. The seepage due to the dissolution of
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Geotech Geol Eng
Tigris
North AlJazeera
Mosul Dam reservoir
Hydropower Dam site
Fig. 1 Location of Mosul Dam with main facilities
Fig. 2 Schematic diagram of Mosul Dam cross section
gypsum and anhydrite beds raised a big concern for the safety of the dam and its possible failure. In that winter as the reservoir level increased for the first time seepage began to appear from
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