TITLE:
Future Prospects for Macro Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) Technique in North East Iraq
AUTHORS:
Nadhir Al-Ansari, Mawada Abdellatif, Saleh Zakaria, Yaseen T. Mustafa, Sven Knutsson
KEYWORDS:
Rainwater Harvesting, Sulaimaniyah, Iraq
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Water Resource and Protection,
Vol.6 No.5,
April
18,
2014
ABSTRACT: Countries
in Middle East and North Africa (MENA region) are considered as arid and
semi-arid areas that are suffering from water scarcity. They are expected to
have more water shortages problem due to climatic change. Iraq is located in
the Middle East covering an area of 433,970 square kilometers populated by 31
million inhabitants. One of the solutions suggested to overcome water scarcity
is Rainwater Harvesting (RWH). In this study Macro rainwater harvesting
technique had been tested for future rainfall data that were predicted by two
emission scenarios of climatic change (A2 and B2) for the period 2020-2099 at
Sulaimaniyah Governorate north east of Iraq. Future volumes of total runoff
that might be harvested for different conditions of maximum, average, and
minimum future rainfall seasons under both scenarios (A2 and B2) were
calculated. The results indicate that the volumes of average harvested runoff
will be reduced when average rainfall seasons are considered due to the effect
of climatic change on future rainfall. The reduction reached 10.82 % and 43.0%
when scenarios A2 and B2 are considered respectively.