GAP's Irrigation Component

            Turkey’s estimated irrigation potential is 8.5 million hectares, and 4.2 million hectares , or 49% of the irrigation potential, were irrigated in 1994.  The GAP region has approximately 3.1 million hectares of cultivable land of which 1.7 million hectares will be irrigated by GAP’s completion in 2010.  When the irrigation projects of GAP are completed, the area brought under irrigation will be equal to about 20 percent of Turkey’s irrigable land (1.7/8.5 million ha) and 40 percent of Turkey’s irrigated land (1.7/4.2 million ha) prior to the GAP.

The GAP Master Plan divides the newly irrigated areas by the two river basins.  The Lower Eurphrates River Basin Projects will irrigate over one million hectares, and the Tigris River Basin Projects will irrigate nearly 600,000 hectares.  The Lower Euphrates Project consists of the Ataturk Dam, Sanliurfa Tunnels, Sanliurfa hydroelectric power plant, Sanliurfa-Harran irrigation, Mardin-Ceylanpinar irrigation, Siverek-Hilvan pumped irrigation, and Bozova pumped irrigation. Most of the main public investments in the Lower Euphrates projects are now completed.  In 1999, 11 percent of GAP’s irrigation area, or 185,000 hectares, were completed within all nine provinces.

            The GAP started to contribute to agricultural output for Turkey at the end of 1994, when the first Sanliurfa Tunnel from the Ataturk Dam was opened.  The Sanliurfa Tunnel system is a major component of the GAP, which consists of two parallel tunnels each 26.4 kilometers long and 7.62 meters in diameter. Both tunnels will irrigate nearly 476,000 hectares via gravity-flow onto the Sanliurfa-Harran, Mardin and Ceylanpinar plains. The Ataturk Reservoir will irrigate another 406,000 hectares (by pumping) for a total of 882,000 hectares.

 

Currently, one Sanliurfa Tunnel delivers water to two main canals that irrigate 150,000 hectares in the Sanliurfa-Harran plains.  The Sanliurfa Main Irrigation Canal irrigates 50,000 hectares and the Harran Main Canal irrigates 100,000 hectares.  The second Sanliurfa Tunnel is scheduled for completion in 2002.  Water from the second tunnel will irrigate nearly 326,000 hectares on the Mardin-Ceylanpinar plains, where 208,000 hectares will be irrigated by gravity and 118,000 hectares will be irrigated by pumping.

            From 1994 to 2001, area planted in cotton has increased from 164,000 to 341,000 hectares, or greater than a 50 percent increase in area.  Similarly, cotton production in the GAP region has increased from 164,000 to 400,000 metric tons, or nearly a 60 percent increase in production.  This has transformed the GAP region from producing approximately 25 percent of the nations’ cotton in 1994 to producing nearly 50 percent of the nation’s cotton in 2001.  In addition, the increase in irrigated area within the GAP has resulted in near record levels of cotton production for Turkey this year and made Southeast Anatolia a regional leader in Turkey’s cotton production.