Water is crucial for social and economic development. Turkey has always been characterised by political tensions with its neighbours and by generally limited water availability, making the allocation of water an important and potentially discordant issue. However, significant changes in Turkey’s water policy have occurred throughout the past three decades. The book, “Turkey’s Water Policy – National Frameworks and International Cooperation,” offers a broad perspective on Turkey’s water policy, documenting the reforming of its national water policy framework and assessing the stage of cooperation on transboundary water issues. The scope of this edited volume goes beyond the Euphrates and Tigris river basin, and also considers Turkey’s other transboundary rivers, which are often neglected.
The contributions to this publication underline that Turkey’s current national water regime faces growing environmental concerns. They also examine the international criticism of insufficient transboundary water cooperation. However, the analysis also reveals the importance of Turkey’s wish to join the European Union as it has adopted an ambitious body of EU water law. To understand Turkey’s position on international water law, the contributors to the book show that Turkey’s national policies and the socio-economic circumstances that impact water resource management need to be considered. Triggered by the EU Water Framework Directive and other reforms following the eligibility criteria to join the EU, a few participatory elements in water resource decision-making have been introduced. However, these elements do not satisfy the demands of a new generation of civil society and non-governmental organisations. They demand the protection of civil rights and freedom, along with environmental issues. Together with academics, intellectuals and professional organizations, they view with scepticism the government’s course of infrastructure-centred river basin development, which has social and environmental costs.
In this context, transboundary water cooperation becomes an important issue and demands careful analysis of achievements and shortcomings to date. The authors point to the necessity of exchanging reliable data among riparian countries to jointly monitor water use and quality, as well as to jointly plan infrastructure. A key step toward integrative water management is the establishment of joint platforms for all riparian countries in each river basin to develop sustainable projects for water-related development fields such as agriculture, energy, nature protection and health. A real challenge lies ahead as this requires coordination among twelve neighbouring countries toward common water policy targets. (Elsa Sterner)
Further information on the book “Turkey’s Water Policy – National Frameworks and International Cooperation” edited by Aysegul Kibaroglu (OKAN University, Turkey), Waltina Scheumann (German Development Institute), and Annika Kramer (adelphi) can be found at: www.springer.com/alert/urltracking.do?id=L1d2ea0M884f89Saefb27c
Published in: ECC-Newsletter, 5/2011
