Iori River

BW

The Iori (Georgian იორი; Azerbaijani Qabırrıçay, also Qabırlı or Gabirry ) is a 320 km long left tributary of the Kura in eastern Georgia and western Azerbaijan. In antiquity, the river was known as Cambyses.

Course

The Iori rises to about 2700 m on the western flank of the place well, 3000 m high mountain kakhetian train, a tributary of the Great Caucasus ridge. The source is located in the northeast of the Mtskheta - Mtianeti region approximately 80 kilometers in a straight line north-northeast of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.

It first flows in a southwesterly direction, turns in the small town Tianeti south and then gradually to the southeast. This general flow direction reserves the Iori up to its mouth. Below Tianeti the river at Sioni is dammed for Sioni reservoir. Further below it traverses a back narrowing valley until it reaches west of Sagarejo the Kakheti region and the Samgori sink. Just above, the village Paldo, more than half of the river water of the city is passed through a tunnel in the Samgori Canal, which runs in the direction of Tbilisi and there called the Tiflisser Reservoir, also " Tiflisser sea," east feeds.

From Sagarejo the river cuts through the middle mountain -like, sparsely populated landscape of the Iori plateau. He mostly meanders strong. South of Dedopliszqaro reached the Iori the border with Azerbaijan, which he followed several kilometers before it still flows tens of kilometers throughout the territory of the Azerbaijani rayons Samux to its mouth in the northwestern part of the Mingəçevir reservoir of Kura. Before the creation of the dam in the 1950s, the Iori resulted from the right in the lower reaches of the east extending Kura Creek Alazani.

Hydrology

The catchment area of the river covers 4650 km ², according to other sources 5225 km ², of which 4650 km ², corresponding to 88.4 % in Georgia.

The mean annual runoff is on the middle reaches 18.4 m³ / s, however, takes the lower reaches partly due to the abstraction of water for agricultural purposes and for drinking and industrial water supply to 11.6 m³ / s (at the level Salahli 43 km above the mouth ) and further to 9.82 m³ / s at Yusifli from. Flooding after the snow melts in the mountains leads to the river from May to June; In the summer months there is precipitation annually due to several shorter flooding periods.

Use and infrastructure

The Iori is not navigable.

Riverside is located in 1952 completed Sioni reservoir with a 85 -meter-high dam, 325 million m³ capacity and a small hydroelectric power plant with a capacity of 9 MW. Primarily, the reservoir serves but the water supply. In particular, on the middle reaches are irrigated with water from the Iori almost 100,000 hectares of agricultural land. In the middle reaches, near the Azerbaijani border of Dalimta - reservoir was created in the 1980s by the river with a capacity of 180 million m³.

In the middle reaches at Sartitschala above Sagarejo the highway from Tbilisi to Lagodechi S 5 and the railway line from Tbilisi Telavi cross into the river.