Dokan is a multipurpose dam located on the Lesser Zab River in the Iraq/Kurdistan region. The dam has operated since 1959, and it drains an area of 11,690 km 2 . All reservoirs in the world suffer from sediment deposition. It is one of the main problems for reservoir life sustainability. Sustainable reservoir sediment-management practices enable the reservoir to function for a longer period of time by reducing reservoir sedimentation. This study aims to assess the annual runoff and sediment loads of the Dokan Dam watershed using the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model to evaluate the relative contributions in comparison with the total values delivered from both watershed and Lesser Zab River and to identify the basins with a high sediment load per unit area. These help in the process of developing a plan and strategy to manage sediment inflow and deposition. The SUFI-2 program was applied for a model calibrated based on the available field measurements of the adjacent Derbendekhan Dam watershed, which has similar geological formations, characteristics and weather. For the calibration period (1961)(1962)(1963)(1964)(1965)(1966)(1967)(1968), the considered statistical criteria of determination coefficients and Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency were 0.75 and 0.64 for runoff while the coefficients were 0.65 and 0.63 for sediment load, respectively. The regionalization technique for parameter transformation from Derbendekhan to Dokan watershed was applied. Furthermore, the model was validated based on transformed parameters and the available observed flow at the Dokan watershed for the period (1961)(1962)(1963)(1964); they gave reasonable results for the determination coefficients and Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency, which were 0.68 and 0.64, respectively. The results of SWAT project simulation for Dokan watershed for the period indicated that the average annual runoff volume which entered the reservoir was about 2100 million cubic meters (MCM). The total sediment delivered to the reservoir was about 72 MCM over the 56 years of dam life, which is equivalent to 10% of the reservoir dead storage. Two regression formulas were presented to correlate the annual runoff volume and sediment load with annual rain depth for the studied area. In addition, a spatial distribution of average annual sediment load was constructed to identify the sub basin of the high contribution of sediment load.

The Dokan Reservoir dam is a concrete cylindrical arch with gravity abutments, located on the Lesser Zab River about 60 km from the city of Sulaimani in north-eastern Iraq. A bathymetric survey was conducted in November 2014 for a period of 10 days, using an echo sounder of 200-kHz single beam. The survey results indicated an annual average sediment deposition of 3.8 million m 3 . Thirty-two sediment samples were collected from the reservoir bed. The ratio of gravel, sand, silt and clay was 15:14:48:23, respectively. The reservoir bed is covered mainly with silt. The sediments are composed of silty clay (77.6%), silty sandy clay (10%), sandy gravely silty clay (1.2%) and gravely sandy silty clay (1%).

The Dukan Dam Reservoir (DDR) in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has been studied to determine the characteristics and nature of the reservoir and the deposited sediments on its bottom surface. This study was achieved by doing a field survey and grain size analyses of the collected sediment samples at 32 locations representing the whole reservoir area that had been created when the Lesser Zab River was dammed in 1959. The Dukan Dam, which is a multipurpose concrete arch dam, was built on the Lesser Zab River for controlling its flood during high rainfall seasons, irrigation and power generation. The catchment area is 11,690 km 2. The surface area of the reservoir is 270 square kilometers and the volume is 6.870 × 106 m 3 at normal operation level (El. 511.00 m. a.s.l.). The minimum drawdown level is at elevation 469 m above sea level (a.s.l.). The live storage is 6.14 × 106 m 3 while the remainder is dead storage. The reservoir has a surface area that reaches 270 square kilometers and is composed of two sub-reservoirs connected by a narrow channel that has a length of 5 kilometers. The relatively bigger reservoir is located in the north and has a triangular shape with a surface area approximately 250 square kilometers. The smaller sub-reservoir is located down south where the dam exists and it has irregular rectangular shape. Thirty-two sediment samples were collected from the bottom of Dukan reservoir. The bed of the reservoir is mainly composed of 15% gravel, 14% sand, 48% silt and 23% clay respectively. Most of the sediments are very fine grained, very poorly sorted, strongly coarse skewed and mesokurtic.

Prudent management of Iraqi water resources under climate change conditions requires plans to be based on actual figures of the storage capacity of existing reservoirs. With the absence of sediment flushing measures, the actual storage capacity of Dokan Reservoir (operated since 1959) has been affected by the amount of sediment delivered during its operational life leading to an undetermined reduction in its storage capacity. In consequence, there has not been an update on the dam's operational storage capacity curves. In this research, new operational curves were established for the reservoir based on a recent bathymetric survey undertaken in 2014. The reduction in reservoir capacity during the period between 1959 and 2014 was calculated by the mean of the difference between the designed storage capacity and the storage capacity which was concluded from the 2014 bathymetric survey. Moreover, the rate of sediment transported to the reservoir was calculated based on the overall quantities of accumulated sediment and the water discharge of the Lesser Zab River into the reservoir. The results indicate that the dam capacity is reduced by 25% due to sedimentation of an estimated volume of 367 million cubic metres at water level 480 m.a.s.l. The annual sedimentation rate was about 6.6 million cubic metres, and the sediment yield was estimated to be 701.2 t∙km−3∙year.