Turkey’s main cities will face running out of water in the coming months, with warnings that Istanbul has less than 45 days of water left.
The lack of rain has caused the country’s most severe drought in a decade and has left the megacity of 17 million people on the verge of running out of water, according to Turkey’s Chamber of Chemical Engineers. The mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavaş, said earlier this month that the capital had another 110 days of dams and reservoirs.
Izmir and Bursa, Turkey’s next two largest cities, are also struggling, with dams that are about 36% and 24% full, respectively, and farmers in wheat-producing areas, such as the Konya Plain and the province of Edirne , on the border with Greece and Bulgaria are warning of crop failure.
The critically low level of rainfall in the second half of 2020 – reaching 50% per year in November – prompted the religious affairs directorate to instruct imams and their congregations to pray for rain last month.
Turkey is a “water shortage” country, with only 1,346 cubic meters of water per capita per year, and has faced several droughts since the 1980s due to a combination of population growth, industrialization, urban expansion and climate change.
“Instead of focusing on measures to keep water demand under control, Turkey insists on expanding its water supply by building more dams … Turkey has built hundreds of dams in the past two decades,” said Dr. Akgün İlhan, water management specialist at the Istanbul Institute for Policy Center.
“The warning signs have been around for decades, but not much has been done in practice.”
Turkey has long prioritized economic growth above environmental concerns and remains the only G20 country other than the United States that has not yet ratified the 2015 Paris agreement.
“Everyone knows that river basins must be preserved, especially for those episodes of drought that are becoming more severe and long-term,” said Dr. Ümit Şahin, who teaches global climate change and environmental policy at Istanbul Sabancı University.
“However, in Istanbul, for example, the most vital river basins, the last forests and agricultural land, [have been opened] for urban development projects … the new airport, the new Bosphorus bridge, its connecting roads and highways, and the Istanbul canal project. These policies cannot solve the drought problem in Turkey ”.
Ekrem İmamoğlu, elected mayor of the Istanbul opposition party in 2019, despite strong resistance from the Justice and Development party in the Turkish government, told the Guardian that Istanbullus it was guaranteed that the huge Melen dam system would supply the city’s water needs smoothly by 2070.
When he took office, however, his management realized that construction problems would delay the project for several years.
For now, the municipality has asked residents to think carefully about how to save water, including turning off the tap when brushing their teeth or shaving, closing the valves that supply the sinks and installing lower-consumption taps.
“Water would not be a problem today if the dam was active. But we also have to think about the broad issues of climate change … If it doesn’t rain on Melen, you won’t be able to get water from there either, ”said İmamoğlu.
In Izmir, local authorities are gearing up against water scarcity by digging 103 new boreholes, recycling wastewater and minimizing losses and leaks by repairing old pipes, according to the city’s mayor, Tunç Soyer.
Ultimately, cities in Turkey need a lot of rain, immediately, to avoid having to ration water in the coming months – and even rains sustained for the rest of the winter may not be enough for farming communities to rescue this year’s crops.
Drought creates a vicious cycle, says İlhan: declining agricultural production and rising food prices can lead to increased poverty and rural to urban migration, exacerbating existing pressures on water infrastructure.
“Turkey has the economic and technological means to repair its damaged water cycle. The missing element is the political will to take these steps. “