Estimation of annual harvested runoff at Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Kurdistan region of 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 rain- water harvesting (Macro RWH) is one of the te- chniques that can ensure water availability for a region having limited water resources. This te- chnique is based on Soil Conservation Service- Curve Number (SCS-CN) method and the Water- shed Modeling System (WMS) was used to esti- mate the runoff. Rainfall records of Sulaymani- yah 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. Godkänd; 2013; 20131231 (nadhir)