TURKEY-WATER: Massive Irrigation System to be Launched

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

ISTANBUL, Nov 8 1994 (IPS) - Turkey this week celebrates the completion of the twin Urfa tunnels, a major component in a key irrigation project — the Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP) — which is expected to play a key role in national and regional development.

The biggest of their kind in this part of the world, the 26.4 kms long and eight metre wide twin Urfa tunnels — one of which starts to operate on Wednesday — will irrigate an area of 700,000 hectares in the presently arid Harran plain. Their water source will be the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

When in full operation, the multi-billion dollar project would have called for construction of 22 dams, 19 hydroelectric power plants, thousands of kilometres of irrigation canals and two gigantic tunnels aimed at promoting the region’s agriculture as well as substantially increasing the total national energy output.

Projected to increase national power generation two-fold and raise agricultural output eight-fold in comparison with 1950s levels, the project was conceived some 40 years ago by present President Suleyman Demirel when he was head of State Drainage Administration.

Two of the dams, Karakaya and Ataturk, have already been constructed on the river Euphrates. They have a 13 billion kilowatt (KWh) output and supply 40 percent of Turkey’s current energy demand.

It is estimated that when the project is completed in 2040 it will irrigate 1.7 million hectares of land and annually generate 26 billion kilowatts of electric power.

The planned irrigation area takes up 19 percent of Turkey’s total arable lands (8.5 million hectares) and the total annual power generation represents 22 per cent of Turkey’s economically viable hydropower potential.

It is also expected that 3.5 million additional jobs would have been created when GAP is completed.

According to Baki Atac, Minister of State responsible for GAP, 37 percent of the overall budgeted investment of 32 billion dollars has already spent on the project.

0 The project covers a number of provinces in the mainly Kurdish populated south-east of the country, including Adiyaman, Batman, Diyarbakir, Gaziantep, Mardin, Siirt and Urfa with a total area of 73,893 sq kms — nearly twice the size of the Netherlands.

It is hoped the project might help integrate the Kurds into the Turkish economic and social structure. The Turkish government refuses to recognise the Kurdish identity even though the country is home to more than 15 million Kurds.