Water resources in Iraq are considered among the elements most affected by climate change, particularly water bodies. Water loss from reservoirs through evaporation is one of the main losses in semi-arid countries, so a study in this area is extremely necessary. To this end, the Mosul Dam reservoir was chosen to analyze the effects of climate change, carrying out a detailed analysis of climate data from 1990 to 2020. The specific effect of each climatic element on evaporation was examined, linking five climatic variables into a single mathematical model to estimate its values. Finally, projections were made for some of the main climatic variables.
The results show that the reservoir loses about 0.9 billion cubic meters per year through evaporation. Analysis of the evaporation data indicated an increasing trend, with a 13.6% rise over 30 years. Results obtained with SPSS software showed that temperature has the greatest direct impact on evaporation, followed by the inverse effect of humidity, the direct effect of sunshine hours, and finally the inverse effect of rainfall, of medium intensity. A mathematical model was then developed to estimate evaporation in the Mosul Dam reservoir, with an R² of 95.6%. The results also highlighted a decrease in storage volume over the analyzed years.
Given the great importance of temperature and rainfall, projections of average temperatures were carried out using the SDSM program. A continuous increase in temperatures was found, which could be about 0.3 °C higher in 2050 than the 2023 average. Rainfall projections show a continuous decrease, with a reduction of 4.9% compared to 2023 and about 50% compared to 1990.
Citation: Aljuhaishy, S. S. D., Naimi, S., Awchi, T. A., & Manfreda, S. (2025, March). Impact of climate change on evaporation in Mosul Dam reservoir-Iraq. In AIP Conference Proceedings (Vol. 3303, No. 1). AIP Publishing.