Capacity Study and Sediment Estimation of Euphrates River Section between Babylon and Karbala Provinces Using HEC-RAS Software

Abstract

         Due to the accumulation of sediments in recent years as a result of decrease the velocity of water because a lack of water imports and climate change effects, which were reducing the amount of water imported from upstream countries to Iraq in the rivers, it was reducing the discharges through sections of the rivers less than design capacity of its and from these rivers (Euphrates River). Current study, a section of the Euphrates River was selected located at from Musayyib Area North of Al Hendiyeh Barrage in Babil Governorate to Torij Area in Karbala Governorate to study the capacity Euphrates River as well as to estimate the sediments in current section. Three main groups of scenarios were used, each group has several secondary scenarios were used to develop a hydraulic model with the HEC-RAS 5.03 software. The first scenario proved the Maximum capacity of Euphrates River with current study area ranges (800-900) m3 / s, the second scenario proved the amount of sediment is 29 million cubic meters, according to what is available from recent cross sections in concerned departments and the third scenario proved that the maximum permissible discharge that passes through of Al Hendiyeh Barrage ranges from (2500) m3 / s or less in the case of sediment removal