JPRS-NEA-85-112 4 September 1985 IRAQ IRRIGATION, DRAINAGE PROJECTS BEGIN TO PAY OFF Baghdad THE BAGHDAD OBSERVER in English 29 Jul 85 p 4 [Article by Clela Khoshaba] [Text] The Ministry of Irrigation undertakes the special tank of building water dans irrigation, drainage and land reclama tion projects. It b also responsible for maintenance work of existing projects, drilling Artesian wells and undertaking research, studies and deigns for future water requirements. Since its foundation in ~ 2. — Tharthar reservoir, 1969, the Ministry of Irriga was designed to control tion has executed several im floods of the Tigris. It hns a portant projects listed as storage capacity of 85 billion priority projects within the cubic metres of water. Ihe five-year national develop Icourse ofthe Tigris has been ment plans. It is currently Ilinked to the reservoir so that carrying nut some strategic surplus watercanbediverted projects which, when com (to the Tharthar valley pend pleted .will constitute a for ing completion of the Mosul ward leap in the agricultu and Bakhma reservoirs. ral, sector. Two canals were built. The first links the valley with 1 As for dams and reservoirs the Tigris* and the other primarily designed to pre-' ,with the Euphrates. The serve available water re second canal is 27 km long' sources in the country, the . and 23-34 m. wide and has Ministry has built the foUiw-r ~jli outfall capacity of 1,1 (JO log projects;,,,. ,.,., cubic metre per second. Ihe Tharthar-1 igris canal 1.—Hamrin Dam on the is now under constmetion Diyala River. This dam was' •and isdue to be completed by < completed in 1981 to control the end of 1986. It pours into flooding and store water for the Tigris at a irrigation of 1.2 million donum (2,500 square' point near al-Taji, notth of Baghdad. It is 65 km long metres) in addition to gener ating 50 megawatts of elec with an outfall capacity of tric power. The dam has a 600 cubic metre/second. It is. storage capacity of 3.95 bil due to be completed by the end of 1986. lion cubic metres of water.' . 3.—Falluja Dam was built tributaries, the Upper Zab' on the Euphrates with an and Lower Zab. outfall capacity of 3,600 cubic metre/second.•'•' This, The western desert of the dam was completed at the' country is now the site of a beginning of 1985 to regulate number of small water pro the waterlevel for the irriga jects which could help to tion projects of Abu Ghraib, settle nomads. Designs for Radhwaniya, Latifiya and similar small dams in the Iskandariya. northern Province of Nineveh and in Diyala Pro There are, moreover, vince are being drawn up. other reservoirs due to be rages including seven bar completed by the end of rages constructed on the riv 1986. These are Haditha ers of Milla and Daghara strategic dam which has a (opened in 1983) and four storage capacity of 8.2 bil others now under construc lion cubic metres, Dohuk tion on the rivers ofShamiya Dam, which guarantees and Kufa. Meanwhile work irrigation water for an area started early in 1985 on the of 15,000 acres west of construction of new Hindiya Dohuk city. Dohuk dam has Banage. a storage capacity of 50 mil lion cubic metres of water. The Ministry of lirigation is in charge ofreclaiming the Iraq's greatest dam, land and setting up major however, is Saddam (Mosul- agricultural projects. Among )Dam. When completed, it is these projects are al-Jezira expected to irrigate more project in Nineveh and Sad than a million donums of dam Irrigation Project in al-Jezira land. lameem Province. These two strategic piojects will Saddam Dam is being irrigate a huge areas of farm . built on the Tigris river with lands, currently depending a storage capacity of 11.11 on rainfall. billion cubic metres ofwater. 'Ihe first stage of Saddam A hydro-electric power sta irrigation project was inau tion isalso being built on the gurated in November 1983 dam togenerate 1,034 mega primarily to irrigate 350,000 watt. The project will be donums which is expected to increase to more than a mil- •completed in 1986. lion doumns including There are, however, other 133,000 donums which will projects under study. These be drip irrigated. includeamongothers, Bakh- Al-Jazira Irrigation Pro ma Dam on the Upper Zab ject covers an area of mor? River to irrigate the Makh-. than a million donums. mour plainin Arbil Province Work began early this yeai and al-Fatha Dam near the on the first phase and tin. .Town of Beji. TheBeji Dam whole project is to be com aims at stabilizing water pleted in the five-year-plar levelof the Tigris anditstwo of (1986-1990). 10 " •'- • • ' •• As for drainage projects, the main drainage canal was built to receive all drained water of the saline lands in the central and southern parts of Iraq and dispose o" the "itywater into the Gulf. The first phase of the project which lies between the city of Nassiriya and the town of Mussayab was completed in 1977. The second phase is now underway. It extends from Nassiriya to Shatt a!- Basra down' to Khor al- Zubair. This course would make 172-km-long canal. Land reclamation to de salinize the soil and prepare it for plantingis a real chal lengefin Iraq due to th; diversity of soil composition and climate. The overall area of re claimed land since the incep tionof 17-30 July Revolutior. until April 1985 totalled 1.24 million donums. The Ministry is, moreov er, taking the lead in intro ducing modern techniques in its projects. Canals are now lined with reinforced con crete to minimize the loss of water. The Ministry hasalso set a precedence by intro ducing drip and sprinkler irrigation in Iraq an area of 48,000 donums are now irri gated by sprinller system while another thousand donums are drip-irrigated. CSO: 4400/224 11.