Given the location and development of Duhok Province in the Kurdistan Region, the city is touted to be of great economic and commercial value to the entire region of Iraq. The province is embedded between two mountains in the north, called Spi and Gully, and the Zawa Mountain in the south. Duhok city is located in the northern part of Iraq, northeast of Mosul, 65 km to the northeast border of Turkey, and about 180km north and northeast to the Syrian Border. Duhok is also about 470 kilometres north of Baghdad and around 440m above sea level. The Khrabdeim water treatment plant (WTP) was established in 2009 on the Tigris River bank to provide Duhok with potable drinking water to serve 650,000 per capita.
In August 2019, the Khrabdeim WTP for Duhok and Sumel area was temporarily and partially obstructed by unprecedented algae bloom in the Tigris River at the intake site of the water treatment plant. In the treatment process, the filtration steps were clogged by a sticky layer of algae and other biological substances, which affected the proficiency of the plant resulting 60% shortage in drinking water supplies. At the same time, the average daily demand is 8,500 m3/d. Therefore, the area suffered service capacity and quality problems.
In November 2019, based on a request from the local government, an international expert was contracted to prepare two studies on the algae problem that Khrabdiem water treatment faced, also to identify scientific solutions to overcoming the algae problem. The mentioned studies were in parallel with multi-level water management training courses, a 2020 water day awareness campaign and procurement intervention to Avrika water well connected to the drinking water network of Zawita Sub-district and supplying spare parts to Khrabdeim WTP. In June 2020, another Dutch expert was contracted to develop another study to identify solutions through a list of recommendations on improving drinking water quality in the Khrabdeim water treatment plant.
Another Dutch expert was contracted to shrink the broad recommendations into a short list of more practical possible technical improvement measures for the Khrabdeim WTP. Based on that, the MASAR program intervention included supplying spare parts to the Khrabdeim water treatment plant. This plant is considered the main source of drinking water for Duhok city and the surrounding regions. Therefore there was necessary to supply and install two motors, a flash mixer and a slow mixer so that the water production at this plant is ongoing.
The second procurement was the construction of deep well rooms, supply and installation of submersible pumping group and the power line extension. Also, this water line was connected to the Zawita water network, in which 1,600 families (12,000 people) gained access to drinking water. It reduced the gap between the actual need in which production was 810 cubic metres, and the absolute need was 2400 cubic metres per day which equals three times the amount of the actually available population.