University of Sulaimani

College of Engineering
Water Resources Department

Karkheh Dam

Prepared by: Sivar Rzgar Sdiq

4th Stage – Group: B
Date: 18-10-2022
Table of Contents

 Introduction
 Type and information of the Dam
 Location of the Dam
 What has happened to Karkheh Dam at 2019?
 Karkheh Dam Now
 References

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Introduction

The Karkheh Dam (‫ )سد کرخە‬is a largest dam in the country, built in Iran
on the Karkheh River. The dam is in the northwestern province of
Khūzestān, and the closest city being Andimeshk to the east of Iran. The
engineering division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)
started construction on the Karkheh Dam in 1992 and the dam was
complete in 2001, and construction cost is 700 million U.S dollars.

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Type and information of the Dam

The dam is a rock- fill dam with clay core, which is kind of an
embankment dam, it is 127 meters high and crest length 3040 meters and
has a reservoir capacity 5.9 billion cubic meters. The Karkheh Dam is
designed to irrigate approximately 320,000 hectares of downstream
lands in Khuzestan & Ilam Provinces, annually generating electricity
power of 934 GW, and controlling devastating seasonal floods.

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Location of the Dam

The Dam is located in south-east of Iraq, 25 km north-west of

Andimeshk City, Khuzestan Province.

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Location of the Dam

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What has happened to Karkheh Dam at 2019?

Generally, presence of big nature disasters like floods have devastating

impacts on life. Karkheh Dam is one of the flood resisting based dams
which had been specified for flood control but unfortunately exceeding
in precipitations and water level caused the dam to lose its resistance
against the water as well as letting the water flood the downstream.
There is a significant risk of additional flooding from Karkheh dam
(Khuzestan Province). Lorestan, Khuzestan and Golestan the worst
impacted provinces. 77 schools have been destroyed (55 in Lorestan and
22 in Golestan).
The floods affected 10 million people leaving two million persons in
need of humanitarian assistance. 78 persons lost their lives while 2,408
people are reported injured. More than 4,893 cities and villages have
been hit by the floods, 179,000 houses were destroyed/damaged. Over
1,200 schools and 70 hospitals/health centers were damaged/destroyed.
About 365,000 people were temporarily displaced, staying in
emergency/temporary shelters, with relatives or host families.
Agricultural areas were heavily hit, about one million hectares of
farmland flooded.

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Karkheh Dam Now

Due to the fall in precipitation in the past two years since now, the dam
water level has dropped below 1 billion cubic meters. The dam now has
about 985 million cubic meters of water, which is less than 20% of the
dam’s total capacity.

The latest situation of Karkheh Dam, Khuzestan, Iran, May 15, 2022.

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References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karkheh_Dam
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Karkheh-Dam-Andimeshk-
Iran_fig1_331894168
https://en.isna.ir/photo/1401022617773/Karkheh-Dam-Drier-than-ever

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