Drought in Turkey ravages farms, threatens cities
Pastor Dale Morgan
Drought in Turkey ravages farms, threatens cities*
YENICIFTLIK, Turkey, Aug 9 (AFP) Aug 09, 2007
In western Turkey, where the lakes are drying up and the blazing sun
burns the crops, a 10-month-long drought has ravaged farming and is now
threatening water supplies in the big cities.
Since October the north-west Marmara region, home to Turkey's largest
city Istanbul, has received only 394 millimetres (15.5 inches) of rain
per square metre, 34 percent less than normal, while the Aegean coast
has seen 355 millimetres, about 43 percent less than the usual level.
The situation is unprecedented for at least three decades, according to
the weather service.
"I'm 62 years old and I haven't seen such a drought in my life," said
Abdulkerim Aksu in Yeniciftlik, a village of about 2,000 people to the
west of Istanbul.
Every morning over the past several months, the dimunitive man has
filled up the cistern on his trailer truck at a dam some 10 kilometres
(six miles) away to water his crops.
He has managed to save his watermelons and peppers, but was unable to
irrigate his larger fields of wheat and sunflowers.
"We had to harvest the wheat last month even though it was not yet time.
It would have burnt otherwise," he said. "We ended up with 50 percent
less crop."
"And look at the sunflowers," he added. "They did not even grow leaves."
In the nearby village of Turkmenli, similar concerns preoccupy farmers.
"I have no idea what we will do if it goes on like that," Osman Alkan,
60, said.
Pointing out that most villagers are elderly people, he added: "I guess
we will have to survive on our pensions."
The drought, blamed on global warming, has cost farmers five billion
Turkish liras (3.9 billion dollars, 2.8 billion euros), according to an
estimate from the Union of Turkish Chambers of Agriculture.
The country's wheat crop has fallen as much as 15 percent, while in the
Aegean alone the cotton, corn and tobacco harvest has shrunk by 30
percent and the fig crop by as much as 50 percent, the Union says.
The water supply in big cities is under an equally serious threat.
In the capital Ankara, reservoirs are nearly depleted, and the
authorities introduced a water rationing program on August 1, dividing
the city of four million people into two sections that alternately face
48-hour water cuts.
However, the situation took a turn for the worse Monday night when one
of the main pipes burst, leaving the entire city without water until at
least late Friday, according to officials.
The city has to supply water to hospitals in tankers and has called for
the opening of schools to be delayed by a month until mid-October.
Ankara also has started building a 375-kilometre pipeline to bring water
from Kizilirmak, the country's longest river, to the east of the city.
Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek, under fire for failing to take timely
precautions, said the pipeline would be operational in five months.
But it was not clear how the capital would survive until then if no rain
falls, with experts already warning about the risk of diseases.
The city had only 170 million cubic metres (5.95 billion cubic feet) of
water left in its dams and reservoirs -- just five percent of total
capacity -- at the beginning of this month.
Istanbul, with a population of about 12 million, is also building a new
pipeline after its reserves fell to 230 million cubic metres, or 26.4
percent of dam capacity, prompting irregular water cuts and sending
imams out for rain prayers last week.
The meteorology service has warned that more trouble may be in store, as
autumn rains in western and central Turkey are unlikely to end the drought.
"Turkey must learn to live with the risk of drought, just as it has
learnt to live with the risk of earthquakes," the service said,
referring to the frequent tremors that shake the quake-prone country
straddling the continents of Europe and Asia.