An Investigation of Water Potential of Lake Egirdir, Turkey

Recent increase in urban population, water pollution due to industrialization, and climate changes revealed the need to revisit water utilization policies, to use water resources adequately, redo critical analysis for existing prevention plans and prepare new prevention plans. In the present study, current state of the water potentials of Egirdir region located at lakes region is investigated in terms of precipitation, temperature, evaporation, and water level change by using the monthly and annual data available. Therefore, the data is processed by using Run homogeneity test, Mann Kendall and Sen Analysis. In addition, water budget analysis is carried out for Lake Egirdir. It is found that analysis results and water budget results overlap for Lake Egirdir. Provided preventive measures are not taken immediately, at the end they are of 100-year period. Level of Lake Egirdir is estimated to decrease annually by 24%. To prevent the water level decreasing in Lake Egirdir, some necessary precautions should be taken: inactive underground resources should be activated; irrigation lands which use water from Lake Egirdir should not be allowed; future water storage within the rainfall watershed should be prevented, the lands that have shown no signs of development and which are expected to not improve in the future should be detected and these lands should be removed from future irrigation plans, efficient methods of economical use of water resources for the currently cultivated irrigated lands should be explored and developed, methods of economic utilization of water should be performed throughout the use of intelligent farming. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.