TEHRAN –Some 26.37 billion cubic meters of water is stored behind the dams across Iran, indicating that 52 percent of the capacity of the country’s dams is full, a report by Iran Water Resources Management Company (IWRM) said.

Based on IWRM data, currently, the total capacity of the country’s dam reservoirs stands at 50.5 billion cubic meters.

As reported, since the beginning of the current water year (late September) up to December 18, the total volume of water inflow to the reservoirs of the country's dams stood at 7.18 billion cubic meters, two percent more than the figure for the last year’s same period.

According to the mentioned data, compared to the figures for the previous water year, the volume of water outflow from the country's dams has decreased by 16 percent to stand at 7.98 on the mentioned date.

Last week, Mohammad Mousavi Kani, the director of planning affairs at Iran Water and Power Resources Development Company (IWPCO), said that all dams across Iran are fully prepared for handling potential floods in the winter.

Due to the recent rainfalls across Iran, the flood flows have been completely contained in the dam reservoirs and the empty volume of the dam reservoirs under IWPCO supervision has reduced to 2.6 billion cubic meters, Mousavi Kani said.

According to meteorological forecasts regarding the occurrence of major floods in the western and southwestern basins of the country in the current Iranian calendar month (started on November 21), so far about 750 million cubic meters of water has been contained in the dams of the mentioned regions.

Some 87 percent of the mentioned figure has been stored in Karun 4, Gotvand, and Seymareh dams, according to Mousavi.

As reported, over two billion cubic meters of water has been stored in the dams under IWPCO management since the beginning of the current water year (started in late September), of which 38 percent was realized in the current month.

Out of a total of 183 currently operational dams across Iran, 52 are related to the Caspian Sea catchment area, 12 are based in Urumieh basin, 68 dams are located in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman watersheds, 34 dams are in the Central Plateau, 11 dams are in Sarakhs catchment basin, and another six dams are located across the eastern boundary basin (Hamoun).

EF/MA