Floods caused by dam failures can cause huge losses of life and property, especially in estuarine areas and valleys. In spite of all the capabilities and great improvements reached by man in the construction of dams and their structures, they will remain helpless before the powerful forces of nature, especially those related to tectonic activation, and the occurrence of earthquakes of different intensities.

The region extending from the Ilisu Dam in Turkey to the Mosul Dam in Iraq was chosen as an area for this study, and the HEC-RAS application was used to simulate the collapse of the Ilisu Dam due to a major earthquake, to know the magnitude of the risks and losses that could result from this. The Ilisu Dam was built very close to a highly tectonically active fault system, particularly the East Anatolian Fault (EAF), which is one of the largest tectonically active faults in the world with a length of 500 km. This region has witnessed past and present earthquakes of high magnitude (M > 7), especially in the EAF, so the construction of the Ilisu Dam near the EAF fault system is of great concern, as it was built in a basin with very complex seismic activity and geology.

Using the HEC-RAS simulation application, the study found that the flood resulting from the collapse of the Ilisu Dam would reach the edges of the Mosul Dam Lake in just 13 h. With a flow of more than 100,000 m³/s, more than 10 billion m3 of water will flow into the Mosul Dam Lake within four days of the disaster. This will lead to the collapse of the Mosul Dam and direct the flood wave of the collapse of these dams towards Baghdad through Mosul, Tikrit, and Samarra. This could pose risks to all Iraqi cities located within the Iraqi sedimentary plain (Mesopotamia), from south of the Mosul Dam up to Basra, in a scenario similar to Noah’s Flood.

大坝溃坝引起的洪水会造成巨大的生命和财产损失，尤其是在河口地区和山谷。尽管人类在建造大坝及其结构方面达到了所有的能力和巨大的改进，但在强大的自然力量面前，特别是那些与构造激活和不同强度的地震有关的力量，它们将仍然无能为力。

从土耳其的伊利苏大坝延伸到伊拉克的摩苏尔大坝的区域被选为本研究的一个区域，HEC-RAS 应用程序用于模拟伊利苏大坝因大地震而坍塌的情况，以了解由此可能导致的风险和损失的大小。伊利苏大坝建在非常靠近构造活跃的断层系统的地方，特别是东安纳托利亚断层 （EAF），它是世界上最大的构造活跃断层之一，长度为 500 公里。该地区过去和现在都见证了高震级 （M > 7） 的地震，尤其是在电弧炉中，因此在电弧炉断层系统附近建造伊利苏大坝非常令人担忧，因为它建在一个地震活动和地质非常复杂的盆地中。

使用 HEC-RAS 仿真应用程序，该研究发现，伊利苏大坝坍塌造成的洪水将在短短 13 小时内到达摩苏尔大坝湖的边缘。在灾难发生后的四天内，流量超过 100,000 m³/s 的水将超过 100 亿 m3 流入摩苏尔大坝湖。这将导致摩苏尔大坝坍塌，并将这些大坝坍塌的洪流通过摩苏尔、提克里特和萨马拉引向巴格达。这可能会对位于伊拉克沉积平原（美索不达米亚）内的所有伊拉克城市构成风险，从摩苏尔大坝以南一直到巴士拉，情况类似于诺亚洪水。