Turkey: Water Disaster

An environmental catastrophe is threatening central Turkey, once the country’s breadbasket, where farmers are depleting the water table after the hottest summer in living memory. …

The drop in water table levels – averaging 27 metres across the plateau in the last 25 years – has had disastrous effects. Dozens of lakes have disappeared, taking their wildfowl with them. Others, including the 1,500sq km salt lake that lies in the centre of the plain, are shrinking fast.

“If things go on as they are now,” Mr Nalbantcilar said, “the whole plain will be a desert within 30 years.”

Climate change is part of the problem. Always low, rainfall over the plateau now appears to be decreasing.

Tukish Disaster