Author(s)

Saleh Zakaria, Yaseen T. Mustafa, Diary A. Mohammed, Salahalddin Saeed Ali, Nadhir Al-Ansari, Sven Knutsson

Department of Civil, Environmental & Natural Resources Engineering, Lulea University of Technology, Lulea, Sweden.
Department of Civil, Environmental & Natural Resources Engineering, Lulea University of Technology, Lulea, Sweden；Department of Water Resources Engineering, University of Mosul, Mosul, Iraq.
University of Sulaimani, Sulaimani, Iraq.
University of Zakho, Duhok, Iraq.

Kurdistan Region (KR) of Iraq has suffered from the drought period during the seasons 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 that affected the human and economic activities of the region. Macro rainwater harvesting (Macro RWH) is one of the techniques that can ensure water availability for a region having limited water resources. This technique is based on Soil Conservation ServiceCurve Number (SCS-CN) method and the Watershed Modeling System (WMS) was used to estimate the runoff. Rainfall records of Sulaymaniyah area for the period 2002-2012 were studied and an average season was selected (2010-2011). The results of the application of the WMS model showed that about 10.76 million cubic meters could be harvested. The results also showed that the quantity of the harvested runoff was highly affected by rainfall depth, curve number values, antecedent moisture conditions (AMC) and the area of the basins.

Macro Rainwater Harvesting;Sulaymaniyah; Kurdistan Region; Iraq

Zakaria, S. , Mustafa, Y. , Mohammed, D. , Ali, S. , Al-Ansari, N. and Knutsson, S. (2013) Estimation of annual harvested runoff at Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Kurdistan region of Iraq. Natural Science, 5, 1272-1283. doi: 10.4236/ns.2013.512155.