Mosul Dam is the largest dam in Iraq and one of the largest in the Middle East . It is on the Tigris River , about 45 miles (72 kilometers) upstream from Mosul , one of Iraq’s largest cities. The foundation of the dam is extremely unstable, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers has called it “the most dangerous dam in the world.”
The Mosul Dam is an earth embankment dam. Such dams are made largely out of clay, gravel, and other materials dug out of the nearby ground and compacted. The dam controls floods , provides water for irrigation, and generates electric power. It is 2.1 miles (3.4 kilometers) long and rises 371 feet (113 meters). Water blocked by the dam pools into a reservoir (artificial lake) that can hold about 9 million acre-feet (11 billion cubic meters) of water. The installed capacity of the hydroelectric plant is about 1,050 megawatts.
Construction began on the dam in 1980 and ended in 1984. It was originally called the Saddam Dam after Iraq’s leader during its construction, Saddam Hussein . Since 1986, the dam has required almost continuous maintenance to ensure it remains structurally sound. A breach in the dam could cause catastrophic flooding downstream, potentially destroying much of Mosul and Iraq’s capital city of Baghdad .
Warfare in the region has further threatened the Mosul Dam. At the beginning of the Iraq War (2003-2011), United States forces feared that Saddam Hussein would blow up the dam. After the fall of Hussein’s government, terrorists menaced the dam. A powerful terrorist group calling itself the Islamic State briefly captured the dam in 2014, but was driven out after 10 days. Continued violence has made it difficult for engineers to perform essential maintenance on the Mosul Dam.
