Agricultural and environmental changes in the upper Euphrates catchment of Turkey and Syria and their political and economic implications

Abstract

In southeast Turkey a number of large irrigation projects have been planned to utilize the waters of the Euphrates river held in the reservoir behind the Ataturk Dam. When these projects are fully operational the flow of the Euphrates into Syria will be substantially reduced. This has already led to complaints from the downstream countries of Syria and Iraq. The environmental impacts of importing large volumes of water into the watersheds of two tributaries of the Euphrates, the Balikh and the Khabour (which in their lower courses flow through Syria), are expected to be considerable, particularly on the relatively small River Balikh. Problems are most likely to be caused as a result of irrigation return waters, which may be highly saline and may be up to twice the river's natural flow. Downstream effects could be increased still further as Syria is planning a large irrigation scheme in the lower part of the Balikh catchment. One of the aims of the present project is to assess the usefulness of satellite data for estimating agricultural changes within the upper part of the Euphrates basin. Satellite imagery of the two catchments from the mid-1980s, before large-scale irrigation development began, reveals a largely traditional agricultural pattern, characterized by rain-fed cultivation in the extreme northern part of the region and irrigated agriculture along the major floodplains. Modern commercial agriculture was confined to groundwater developments in the upper Khabour and to projects adjacent to the Euphrates floodplain downstream from the Tabqa dam. Throughout the arid southeastern part of the region agriculture was confined to a few small sites where groundwater was available for irrigation. Elsewhere scrub desert vegetation prevailed. It is on to this traditional pattern of agricultural activity that the modern irrigation projects will be superimposed. In Turkey, rainfed agriculture will be replaced by irrigation. In Syria, land that has not previously been cultivated will be utilized for large-scale irrigation activity. Potential problems here are thus likely to be much greater than in Turkey.