CESME:Ali Alyanak and his neighbors in Turkiye\u2019s tourist hub Izmir now have to draw water from a shrinking aquifer 170 meters underground even as hotel pools remain full \u2014 a sign for many of the region\u2019s dire water crisis amid prolonged drought.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur parents used to draw water from a depth of eight to nine meters, but now we have to go down to 170 meters (560 feet),\u201d said Alyanak, the 39-year-old village chief in Germiyan.<\/p>\n
To cope, authorities in nearby Cesme, a popular seaside resort in Izmir province on Turkiye\u2019s western coast, are restricting drinking water access to 10 hours a day.<\/p>\n
The city of Izmir itself, Turkiye\u2019s third largest, will cut that access to just six hours starting Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Desolate images from the large nearby dam that supplies Cesme, widely broadcast on television, illustrated the risks for the region: its water level has plunged to three percent of capacity, leaving behind a barren landscape.<\/p>\n
For Alyanak and many others, the culprit is clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cHotels are the main problem: The water in the pools evaporates, towels are washed daily and people take three to five showers a day, as soon as they go swimming or come back from outside,\u201d Alyanak fumed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a waste.\u201d<\/p>\n
Climatologists say the Mediterranean basin \u2014 which concentrates 30 percent of world tourism \u2014 will see a sharp decline in rainfall over the coming decades, raising fears of more frequent and severe droughts as a result of global warming.<\/p>\n
The almost complete absence of rainfall since autumn is largely responsible for the current crisis, with some scientists calculating that 88 percent of Turkiye\u2019s territory is at risk of desertification.<\/p>\n
Last week, mosque loudspeakers across Turkiye issued prayers for rain.<\/p>\n
But experts also highlight the impact of tens of thousands of visitors, which is putting pressure on tourism hotspots throughout the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
Selma Akdogan of the Izmir Chamber of Environmental Engineers said tourists consumed \u201ctwo to three times\u201d more water than locals.<\/p>\n
This at a time when \u201cwater levels are falling not only in summer but also in winter,\u201d she said, noting that \u201cRainfall is less regular but more intense, making it more difficult for the soil to absorb rainwater.\u201d<\/p>\n
She wants local authorities to have hotels fill their swimming pools with seawater, for example, and for locals to give up lawns and grass in favor of less water-intensive yards.<\/p>\n
At the helm of a luxury 253-room establishment overlooking the turquoise waters of the Aegean sea, Orhan Belge has little patience for the media focus on the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig four- or five-star hotels like ours have water tanks of 200-250 tons. We have water 24 hours a day,\u201d said Belge, who is also president of the city\u2019s hoteliers\u2019 union.<\/p>\n
For him, the solution to water shortages lies mainly in desalination, a costly and energy-intensive process already used by some hotels in the region.<\/p>\n
The manager of a small hotel in the city, who asked to remain anonymous, acknowledged that \u201cwater shortages are a real problem,\u201d but said he was primarily worried that use restrictions would prompt tourists to look elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast summer, we were fully booked during the same period. And we were still full two weeks ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, the hotel is 80 percent empty and we have no reservations for August.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabiha Yurtsever, an 80-year-old retiree who has spent every summer in Cesme for the past 25 years, said she could not remember a summer so dry.<\/p>\n
She blamed both the government and hoteliers for making the region unliveable.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen forests burn, they build hotels instead of replanting,\u201d said Yurtsever, who spends the rest of the year in Izmir.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fewer trees you have, the less rain you will get.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CESME:Ali Alyanak and his neighbors in Turkiye\u2019s tourist hub Izmir now have to draw water from a shrinking aquifer 170 meters underground even as hotel pools remain full \u2014 a sign for many of the region\u2019s dire water crisis amid prolonged drought. \u201cOur parents used to draw water from a depth of eight to nine …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":84887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84888,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84886\/revisions\/84888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}