Role of Dams on Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation and Resilience

Water resources in Turkey are not sufficiently well distributed and need to be better managed to meet and ensure current and future needs. Turkey is becoming more urbanized while population increases, industry grows, and the demand for agricultural production increases. Due to global warming and climate change, freshwater is increasingly becoming a scarce resource. Water resources should be managed efficiently to optimise the benefits of water, e.g. for energy supply, irrigation and drinking water supply, and to minimise negative environmental impacts such as erosion and flooding. In recent decades, Turkey has made great strides in developing and managing water resources for irrigation, flood control, power generation and other purposes through the construction of dams. Through the construction of dams, Turkey can store water during the rainy season for use throughout the year for irrigation, power generation, drinking water supply and sanitation. Especially in times of floods and droughts, the reservoirs play an important role. As a result of climate change dry seasons become drier and drier and heavy rainfall to cause sudden and increasingly frequent flooding, the importance of dams cannot be ignored. Currently, 992 dams are in operation in Turkey. This study examines the role of dams in climate change adaptation using Turkey as an example.