Lake Keban

Description

The Lake Keban is reservoar on a Karasu (Euphrates) river. The Keban Dam is a combined rockfill and concrete gravity hydroelectric dam operated by the State Hydraulic Works. The dam is 1,097 metres long and its crest is 207 metres) above the level of the river-bed (848 metres above sea-level). Its eight water turbines are capable of producing 1,330 MW. The storage capacity of Lake Keban is 30.6 cubic kilometres and the surface area of the lake is 675 square kilometres, although the lake has reportedly reached higher levels in the past. Due to Lake Kebans relatively high elevation above sea-level and its location in an area with high precipitation, evaporation is relatively low at 0.48 cubic kilometres per year compared to reservoirs in Syria or Iraq. Apart from the Euphrates Valley directly upstream of the dam, the lake has also flooded parts of valleys of the Murat River and the Karasu, the two rivers from which the Euphrates emerges. Although the dam was not originally intended for irrigation, 63,872 hectares of agricultural land was irrigated from Lake Keban in 1999.