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Groundwater in Iraq is considered to be an alternative water resource, especially for areas far away from surface water. Groundwater is affected by many factors including climate change, industrial activities, urbanization, and industrialization. In this study, the effect of artificial recharge on the quantity of groundwater in the Dibdibba unconfined aquifer in Iraq was simulated using a groundwater modeling system (GMS). The main raw water source used in the artificial recharge process was the reclaimed water output (tertiary treatment) from the main wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Kerbala, with 20 injection wells. After calibration and validation of the three-dimensional numerical model used in this study and taking wastewater recharge rates into account, two different scenarios were applied to obtain the expected behavior of the aquifer when the groundwater levels were augmented with 5% and 10% of the daily outflow production of the WWTP in Kerbala. The model matched the observed head elevations with R2 = 0.951 for steady state and R2= 0.894 for transient simulations. The results indicate that the injection of treated water through 20 wells raised the water table in more than 91 and 136 km2 for 5000 and 10,000 m3/day pumping rates, respectively. Moreover, increasing the volume of water added to the aquifer could lead to establishing new agricultural areas, spanning more than 62 km2, extending about 20 km along the river.

Iraq is located in a water-stressed area with little of its own water resources. This means that groundwater is one of the main water resources for this region, this true for other countries in the Middle East. The impact of global warming and climate change in the future, through increases in temperature and fluctuations in rainfall, will escalate water scarcity and the degradation of the quality of water across different water resources. In the current study, the impact of future global warming and climate change on groundwater natural recharge in an unconfined aquifer (Umm Er Radhuma), in the Western Desert of Iraq, was assessed using the simulation tool WetSpass. Future climatic parameters pertaining to the study area, were predicted by downscaling a General Circulation Model (GCM), the second Canadian Earth System Model (CanESM2). CanESM2 was applied to two expected emission representative concentration pathway scenarios; medium RCP4.5 and high RCP8.5, across a period spanning 2020 to 2099, in seven meteorological stations distributed throughout the study region. Based on the statistical indicators from the validation process, the downscaling modeling operation was deemed efficient at predicting climate parameters (average temperature, precipitation and wind speed) during the chosen period. The calibrated future simulations scenarios projected that precipitation will decrease by 9.2% and 14.1% for RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emissions scenarios, respectively. The temperature will increase by 0.96 °C under RCP4.5 and 2.05 °C for RCP8.5. Annual groundwater recharge is predicted to decrease by 13.6% and 21.2%, under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emissions scenarios respectively, by the end of the present century.

Managing rainwater in light of climate variability is one of the most difficult problems facing urban areas in the world. Heavy rainfall contributes to increased infiltration of rainwater and effluent (RDII) into the sewage systems, which leads to system overflow and thus increased environmental pollution. This study aims at reducing the volume of surface runoff and thus reducing the volume of inflow and infiltration that enters the sewage network during the storm of the main sewage line of Karbala city. To investigate the extent to which the proposed solution would mitigate floods in the study area, the rainwater Management Model [SWMM] used data density for hourly precipitation from 2016 - 2019. The results indicate that the size of the flood was reduced to more than 75%, while the flood time decreased from 38 hours to 8 hours. The overload limit was reduced from 25 manholes to 5 manholes reduced (80%), and the excess duration were reduced by 55%. Total sanitary sewer overflow (SSO) 95m3 and area flooding 633m2. This analysis is expected to provide a comprehensive solution to mitigate sewage flooding during a storm and provide support to decision-makers to reduce environmental and health problems during heavy rains.

Storm networks, as with all urban infrastructure elements, are important to life in society. One of the most important problems facing such networks is the clogging of pipes due to sediment inlet into the sewage systems, which can cause flooding during heavy rain. This study aims to improve the efficiency of storm networks by using a new filter. In this study, a model of a network of pipes was built up to simulate rain flow over a street of two lanes. The first lane contained a filter and the second lane contained a manhole. The percentage of sediment passing from the manhole to the filter was calculated and compared in terms of the effects of several variables, such as the intensity of rainfall and the street slope. The results showed that the passing ratio from the filter to manhole was 0.28 at a low rain intensity of 30 mm/hr and 0.13 at a high rain intensity of 58 mm/hr. The passing ratio from filter to manhole was 0.21 and 0.12 for small and big lengths of filter, respectively, while the passing ratio at small and big bed slopes was 26 and 13, respectively.

Storm sewer systems face many challenges in urban areas, in particular those systems which are old and surpassing their design period. This study has used data from an urbanized, subcatchment covering 360 ha of dead run watershed in the Alkadeer district, Karbala, Iraq. Physically based models, Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis (ASSA) and multiple nonlinear regression (MNLR), were applied. Hydrology data from 1980 to 2013 were inputted and examined over three scenarios. The results indicated that significant increase in peak flooding was produced by an increase in discharge values which may occur through a higher rainfall intensity. The model was examined and new equations were developed that may help us to better understand the hydraulic and hydrologic simulations that are identified as having the potential to better protect the environment against sudden rainfall intensities. The ratio of area of subcatchment to cross-sectional area of a pipe (Ac/Ap), the ratio of slope of subcatchment to slope of a pipe (Sc/Sp), and the ratio of velocity in subcatchment to velocity in a pipe (Vc/Vp) were the most sensitive parameters informing the ratio of runoff discharge of a subcatchment pipe discharge (Qc/Qp). This study suggests that a more effective management of the storm water system under critical circumstances could be achieved by limiting the above parameters and this increases the efficiency of storm water facilities.