When the rivers run dry
Today's generation in Turkey is using up the water resources that belong to their grandchildren. It will be too late to act when the future arrives and the rivers run dry. The time for action is now.
Please subscribe; please share.
There is no subscription fee for this blog and never will be. If you like what you read, in lieu of thanking me, please share this page. WhatsApp, Twitter(X), Instagram, Facebook are different ways to share. I would like to get more scrutiny. I try hard but sometimes errors creep in. The more people read, the higher the chances are that errors are noticed. If you see a mistake, please correct by a comment, Note, or write to me directly. If you have the time to write a long post, then I will publish it as a separate post under your alias.
-+-+-+-+
Turkey is on its way to becoming a desert country. This may come as exaggeration to some because, at the moment, the water in underground aquifers and the snowmelt from the surviving glaciers is slowing the rate of desertification. This cannot continue forever. One day, the aquifers will dry out, all glaciers will melt away and most of Turkey (except north eastern part1) will start becoming a salty stony desert.
This is something that looks so obvious to me yet I am disappointed that neither the politicians nor the professional associations seem to be acknowledging it. I have written about this before and will keep doing so until someone takes note and acts.
-+-+-+-+
Gradually drying up
The 50-acre Akgöl fresh water lake in Konya Aksaray dried up in 2021.
Remembering that once upon a time, thousands of migratory birds and flamingos came here every year, Akgöl Village Headman Cuma Göktan said: "Currently, our lake is completely dry. Vehicles, sheep and cattle herds pass through the lake easily. We are calling out to the authorities for water to return as soon as possible." (TRT Haber)
Similar examples abound in other lakes and reservoirs across the country. The following is the photo of another Akgöl, near Van, also dry as a bone:
Scholars use Aridity Index (AI) to describe the wetness of the land. Lower the AI, drier the land. The following map shows Turkey’s AI distribution:
Signs of desertification can already be seen in areas of AI<0.8 in the above map (Turkes, 2020). Everybody expects that it will get drier in the future. For example, the annual surface runoff of the Euphrates-Tigris (Dicle-Fırat) river basin is expected to decrease significantly (25 %–55 %) by 2100 (Pilevneli, Capar et al, 2023).
While this is happening, water consumption keeps increasing in all three use sectors: domestic, industrial and agricultural.
The government encourages more development in the cities with little mention of sustainability and water conservation. The annual water need of Istanbul in 2017 was about 1 billion m3/year (which corresponds to per capita consumption about 200 l/day pp assuming a population of 15m). This is expected to double in the next thirty years. Similar trends apply in other large cities.
-+-+-+-+
In spite of its water deficit, Turkey is the world’s seventh-largest agricultural producer and a top exporter of crops ranging from cereals and fruit to tobacco and tea and it is agressive in increasing its cash crops to bring in foreign exchange. In the driest part of the country, the Konya Basin, there have been large increases in the cultivation of crops such as clover, sugar beet, and corn (Hurriyet).
These crops currently being grown in Konya Basin typically require 800-1200 millimeters of water whereas the rainfall in Central Anatolia is less than 300 millimeters. The water deficit is met by drilling more and more irrigation wells at increasing depths further depleting an already struggling aquifer.
The Turkish aquifers are receding not only in the Konya Basin but all around the country. The following NASA map shows the groundwater wetness levels. The colors depict the wetness percentile, or how the amount of groundwater compares to long-term records (1948-2010). Blue areas have more water than usual, and orange and red areas have less.
Note that the map above shows the relative change in the aquifer water volumes. They have become less almost everywhere in Turkey but the stress is most felt in those areas where the normal was already too dry.
As I said above, not many are yet concerned about Turkey slowly becoming like Sudan because there is still water in the artesians and ice on the mountains. People are worried about Istanbul water shortage but they blame it on the new Melen Dam cracking. They talk about this as an error in engineering rather than the canary in the mine.
-+-+-+-+
Suddenly cactus
Like Gregor Samsa overnight turning into a cockroach, Turkey may one day suddenly realise that it is now a desert in an irretrievable way. This will occur when the major aquifers are depleted and when there is no more snowmelt to feed the river basins.
I expect this to occur within this century. Unfortunately, there is not enough public data, which could have allowed more precise predictions.
Speaking of data, let us start with the rate of aquifer depletion. It is disappointing that while the Turkish universities and geological surveys are publishing many learned papers on the mechanical and geological features of Turkish aquifers, there is no record of how the artesian well depths have been changing in recent history. I am hoping someone somewhere keeps these records but for reasons of their own choose not to publish them. It is criminal negligence if no one knows how the artesian wells have been getting deeper (I am sure they are getting deeper to reach the receding water table).
There is more data on glaciers and seasonal snowmelt but most are in various GIS formats. Unfortunately, I do not have the skill to convert such data into predictions. Glaciers currently occur in Turkey in the higher elevations of the coastal ranges along the southeastern shore of the Black Sea, in the Middle and Southeastern Taurus Mountains, and on Mounts Erciyes, Süphan, and more. The total area of the glaciers is estimated to be 22.9 square kilometers, with the greatest concentration occurring in the Southeastern Taurus (Kurter, 1988). Their total area is relatively small but the main function of glaciers is to act as cold sinks and attract snowfall onto mountain tops. Without glaciers, there would be less snow and without snow, less snowmelt to keep the rivers flowing. The glaciers have been in constant retreat since the observations started at the beginning of the 20th century (Ciner, A, 2003). For example, Mount Ararat glacier lost 29% of its area between 1976 and 2011, at the rate of 70 m/year (7th National Communication of Turkey under the UNFCCC). Fatih University’s Mehmet Sarikayahas found that Uludoruk glacier has been retreating at the rate of 12 m/y between 1948 and 2009.
-+-+-+-+
How about the rain?
Some readers may blame me with panicmongering. “It will still be raining” they will say. Or “do I think that will stop too?”.
I can make no projection about future rainfall levels. Therefore, I am assuming it will stay at current levels.
Turkey has always been a dry country. The average annual precipitation in Turkey for the period 1981–2010 is calculated as 574 mm. The highest rainfall occurs in the eastern Black Sea region with a rate of 2500 mm/year while it is below 300 mm/year in Central Anatolia.
Annual rainfall of 300 mm/year is almost desert-like. The map below shows the annual rainfall for the state I am living in, Queensland, Australia.
The areas shown in light green (200-600 mm) on this map of Queensland are too dry for any crop farming. In the absence of aquifers and snowmelt, this is what 300-mm annual rainfall gives you. Low rainfall can only support small populations. For example, the population of Charleville is only 3000. Other central Queensland towns are even smaller.
Most of the Central Anatolian plateau is in danger of becoming like Central Queensland in the future.
References
Seventh National Communication of Turkey under the UNFCCC, Ministry of Environment and Urbanization. 26 December 2018.
Çiner, A. (February 2003). Türkiye'nin güncel buzulları ve Geç Kuvaterner buzul çökelleri. Türkiye Jeoloji Bülteni 46(1): 55-78.
Kurter, A, Glaciers of Turkey, USGS Paper 1386-G-1, 1988
Turkes, M. (2020) Climate and Drought in Turkey, Chapter 4 in Water Resources of Turkey (1st ed.), eds. Harmancioglu and Altinbilek, Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Springer..
-+-+-+-+
Short Takes
Elon Musk provided Starlink service to Ukraine to help them with their communications during the war. However, he has refused to enable the service for offensive attacks, such as drone strikes. In September 2023, it was revealed that Musk had secretly ordered his engineers to turn off Starlink service near the Crimean coast to prevent Ukraine from using it for a planned drone attack on Russian warships.
That's why, some started asking the Biden government to put this 'spoiled' techno billionaire in his place.
This is a very complex subject and I will only make two observations for now:
Warfare activities used to be at the exclusive discretion of states.It looks like they now require the approval of private companies, albeit in some limited areas for the time being. This is an interesting situation the like of which we have not witnessed in modern times and we will see how the state will react to this situation.
Without joining the debate on whether the Ukrainians are justified to counter-attack Russian territories, I believe that Musk's decision to cut the Starlink service was correct. I think he had to take such a stance just for his own and his company's survival. He has no protection against counter-steps that Russia might have taken otherwise.
-+-+-+-+
You Tube
You Tube algorithm offered this to me two days ago. I do not remember much about this movie. I re-watched the earlier spaghetti westerns but not this one. See if you will remember what movie it is:
I think the best Charles Bronson movie I saw was screened as “Yağmurla Gelen Adam” in Ankara, where I watched it in seventies. It was a French movie (French director and all French actors except for Bronson). I think its US title was Rider on the Rain. One of the things I remember from that movie was Bronson character testing whether he was in love by throwing a walnut against a glass window. You throw it with enough force to break either the walnut or the window. If the walnut breaks, you are not in love.
-+-+-+-+
Pascal - Hagi
Pascal and Hagi listen to music before they go to sleep. I made them a playlist on Spotify:
The tenth song is a new addition. My dear friend Selami suggested Paz, who is Selami’s son and now a very talented young man whom I last saw when he was about ten. We have been listening to PAZ for a few weeks now. I think Pascal reacts the most to Ninni, which I added to the playlist (the link above). Only Pascal relates to the music and tries to join in.
Hagi stays silent and stares at Pascal or eats during music sessions.
-+-+-+-+
Diary
The hurricane Idalia devastated the Florida panhandle last week:
When watching the news, I remembered the time I went to Florida to start my PhD at the University of Miami. It was September 1979. September is the hurricane season and when I arrived in Miami, I learned that I had beaten the Hurricane David landfall by one day. The university put me up at a motel that night before they assign me next day to one of the dormitory places on campus.
That night the TV in my motel room kept giving hurricane updates. Against flooding and other dangers, sanctuary places were listed on the screen. There were different venues for people south of US-1 and those north of US-1. I had no idea where the US-1 highway was nor I knew where I was located in relation to it. At the end, I decided not to be concerned because I had no possessions to lose. All I had was in a suitcase. I locked the suitcase and put it on top of the tallest cabinet in the room, which I thought was high enough to stay dry if the room was flooded. I then went to sleep;. In the morning the sun was up and the hurricane was gone.
What Americans call hurricanes, Australians call cyclones. Another difference between the northern and southern hemisphere hurricanes/cyclones is the direction of rotation. In the above picture, you see the hurricane Idali and another hurricane furher out to the East have both counterclokwise directions. You probably know by now that the cyclones in the southern hemisphere rotate in the opposite direction. This is because of the Coriolis force.
The following picture shows two hurricanes and two cyclones. Can you tell which one is which?
North-eastern Turkey (Rize, Hopa, Artvin) is a totally different climate, as if not part of the Anatolian peninsula