Lake Dukan (or Lake Dokan; ; ) is a

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

in Kurdistan Region Iraq. It is located close to the city of Ranya, and is a

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

on the

Little Zab The Little Zab or Lower Zab (, ''al-Zāb al-Asfal''; or '; , ''Zâb-e Kuchak''; , ''Zāba Taḥtāya'') is a river that originates in Iran and joins the Tigris just south of Al Zab in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The Little Zab is approximatel ...

created by the construction of the Dukan Dam. The Dukan Dam was built between 1954 and 1959 as a multi-purpose dam to provide water storage,

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

and

hydroelectricity Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

. Prior to the flooding of Lake Dukan, the area was subjected to archaeological research to investigate as many archaeological sites as possible. An

archaeological survey In archaeology, survey or field survey is a type of field research by which archaeologists (often Landscape archaeology, landscape archaeologists) search for archaeological sites and collect information about the location, distribution and organi ...

in the Ranya Plain documented some 40

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

s with evidence for occupation ranging from the sixth millennium BCE up to the present. Five of these sites were then excavated: Tell Bazmusian, ed-Dem, Kamarian, Qarashina and Tell Shemshara. The excavations at Tell Bazmusian revealed a temple dating to the second millennium BCE. At Tell Shemshara, an early-sixth millennium BCE village was excavated, as well as an early-second millennium BCE palace with a small archive of

clay tablet In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian language, Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age. Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay t ...

s. The inhabitants of some 50 villages in the flooded area, around 1,000–1,200 families, were resettled to the west of the lake. The surface area of the lake is . At normal operation, the capacity of the reservoir is while its maximum capacity is . At that capacity, the surface elevation is above sea-level. In order to operate the power station, the surface elevation must be between . The

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

of the Dukan Dam is .

References

External links

Lake Dukan Rowing Club
{{commons category, Lake Dukan Sulaymaniyah Governorate Dukan Dukan Tourist attractions in Iraqi Kurdistan

See also

References

External links