International Conference on Applied Life Sciences (ICALS2012) 19 Turkey, September 10-12, 2012 ISALS Effect of Environmental and Socioeconomically Change on Agricultural Production in Konya Region Sukru Dursun*, Serpil Onder, Ramazan Acar, Mithat Direk, Osman Mucehver Selcuk University, Konya, Turkey; *Corrersponding author, Email: [email protected], Tel. & Fax. : +90-332-2232057 Abstract Recently environmental problems are increasing all over the world with increasing population and industrialisation which is the increasing human requirements. In the same way, there are many environmental problems in the Konya Closed Basin, such as scarcity of water supplies in the region for realization of the unplanned agricultural production with related irrigations, since water storage difficulties owing to geologic and topographic characteristics of the area and drain- age problems of irrigated agricultural areas. Climatic conditions are shaped large flat steppe ar- eas in Konya basin. There will be important water shortage problems in the basin and irrigation water demand should be planned. Water losses should be kept to a minimum so that the amount of water obtained from underground water resources can be reduced and eventually the possible biological and ecological adverse impacts of the project will decrease and the diversity of species of flora and fauna will be preserved and endemic species will be protected. With this investiga- tion, we aimed to put forward source of problems come from the future, appeared recently and continue in the future. Our effort may help to reduce critical problem or save our environment for our children. Keywords: Konya Close Basin, Environmental problem, Agriculture related to water, Climate change, 1. Introduction Turkey straddles Europe and Asia with an area of 779,452 km2, across the Marmara Sea with Istanbul and Canakkale Straits. Turkey’s border is on the northwest by Bulgaria and Greece, on the east by Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran, and on the south by Iraq and Syria (Figure 1). Turkey’s 8,333 km coastline extends along the Black Sea, the Marmara Sea, the Aegean and the Mediterranean Sea. Turkey is one of the fortunate countries in which all four seasons and various climate types are present. Large plains, highlands, mountains and deep valleys mainly charac- terize its geography. Turkey lies between the temperate zone and the sub-tropical zone. These peculiarities are causing different seasons to be lived at the same time, over the different climatic regions of the country. Turkey divides into five basic climate regions: Mediterranean Climate, Black Sea Climate, Semi-humid Marmara Climate, Steppe Climate and Continental Eastern Ana- © 2012 Dursun et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 20 tolia Climate. Average altitude is 1,132 m and only 10% of the country is less than 250 m above the sea level. High mountains are concentrated in central and eastern Anatolia. The physical landscape is closely linked to environmental conditions. Erosion is one of the most severe rural environmental problems affecting 81% of the total land surface in varying levels of severity. About 73% of the cultivated land and 68% of the prime agri- cultural land (Classes I-IV) is prone to erosion. As a result, about one billion tons of soil is carried away each year. Turkey has about 120 natural lakes, including small lakes in the mountains. The largest and deepest lake is Lake Van with a surface area of 3,712 km2 and an altitude of 1,646 m from sea level. There are four main regions where lakes are intensively dispersed: The “Lakes District” (Eğirdir, Burdur, Beyşehir, Acıgöl Lakes), Southern Marmara (Sapanca, İznik, Ulubat, Kuş Lakes), Lake Van and its environs, and Lake Tuz and its environs. Turkey has 555 large dam reservoirs. The names and surface areas (km2) of the large ones are Atatürk (817), Keban (675), Karakaya (268), Hirfanlı (263), Altınkaya (118), Kurtboğazı (6). Turkey is rich for streams and rivers which many of them meet with seas within Turkey border. However, Turkey is not enough water sources for their requirements. Many lakes are under drying risk that needs to take measure for this problem (Table 1). 2. General View of Turkey A large part of the Konya province is coincided on the high plains of Central Anatolia. Southern and western parts of Konya area are included the southern Mediterranean. Konya takes geo- graphically in between 36° 41’ and 39° 16’ north latitude and 31° 14’ and 34° 26’ east longitude respectively (Figure 1). Surface area (excluding lakes) is 38,257 km². This area is the largest face in cities area of Turkey (Anonymous 2008a). The average height of the city from the sea level is 1,024 meters. Average altitude is 1,016 m in Konya (Anonymous, 1998; Anonim, 1997). Figure 1. Location maps of Konya City and Konya Closed Basin International Conference on Applied Life Sciences (ICALS2012) 21 Turkey, September 10-12, 2012 ISALS Konya Basin Original Protection Status Recent Situation Wetlands Scale* Samsam Lake 830 ha SPA* (1992) Drying activity for opening Agricultural. Lake area decrease under 400 ha Kozanli Lake 650 ha SPA (1996) Lake area decreased to 50 ha Kulu Lake 860 ha SPA (1992) Lake was dried with usage of under- ground water for irrigation of agricul- tural area. Kulu town wastewater and solid waste discharged via Kulu stream. Lake decrease % 40.11. Eregli reedy 37,000 ha SPA (1992), Nature The reedy dried during Eşmekaya Barrage (Akgöl) reserve (6,787 ha) construction. It lost Natural SPA status in 2005. Surface area decrease 92.85%. Esmekaya reedy 11,250 ha SPA (1992), Perma- Area nearly dried with barrage building nent wildlife reserve on water source for irrigation system (4,500 ha) construction. Lake area decrease 41.76 %. Single water source of area wastewater swage channel of Eregli town. Beysehir Lake 73,000 ha SPA (1988/91) Extreme water pulled for irrigation Konya-Cumra plain. Wastes of around settlement and industry discharged into lake. Lake was decreased 2.96%. Sugla Lake 16,500 ha - Irrigation of 14,600 ha agricultural area in Konya was planned with building of Sugla barrage in Seydişehir Town in. Lake was turn to water reservoir with decreas- ing surface area to 2,500 ha. Hotamis reedy 16,500 ha SPA (1992) Lake area was decreased 27.85%. Bolluk Lake 1,100 ha SPA (1992) It dried in 2007 year. Tersakan Lake 6,400 ha SPA (1992) It was decreased 81.24% Tuz Lake 92,562 ha SPA (1992), national Huge amount of untreated domestic site status and industrial waste water of neighbour (71,44 km2) city and town was discharged. Lake area 62.84%. Meke Lake 40 ha, Meke crater (493 ha) Lake depth was decrease to 1 m with depth accepted as Ramsar extreme irrigation water usage. 12 m side in 2005. Karapınar reedy, 6000 ha - Surface was decrease % 43.43 Sultaniye reedy Table 1. Wetlands and Lakes in Konya Closed Basin (Anonymous, 2008b; Durduran, 2008) SPA*: strict protected area. 22 2.1. Population The population of the city was about 56,462 in 1940, which increased slightly to 119,841 in 1960 and finally showed a high rate of increase and reached 980,953 in 2008. Estimations for 2020 showed that population will be 1,311,200 in 2020 year. The density of the population is 57 people /km2. Konya is the 2nd most crowded city centre in the Interior Anatolian region and 7th overall in Turkey (Anonim, 1994; Anonym, 2010; Anonim, 1996; DİE, (2003)). 2.2. Soil Different big soil groups were originated due to differences climate, topography and a va- riety of major soil main components in Konya. In addition, some of the land types without soil cover can be seen. Konya plain is covered with young geological formations. Plain to- wards the centre is covered the young segmented edges, increasing the thickness of 500 m. 4/5 of the province is flat and the rest is mountainous. Konya is reputation as a wheat warehouse for Turkey, there are other plains Akşehir and Eregli (Anonim, 1997; Anonim, 2000a; Anonim, 2003a). Land Use Main Class Land Use Sub-Class Area (ha) % City building 75,265 1.5 Industry, commerce and Transport area 12,464 0.3 Artificial areas Mine, wasteland and Construction area 11,284 0.2 Artificial Non-agricultural green areas 497 0.0 Agricultural suitable Areas 2,000,966 40.2 Continual products 39,608 0.8 Agricultural Areas pasture Areas 281,841 5.7 Mixed Agricultural Areas 443,531 8.9 Forest areas 72,511 1.5 Forest and semi natural scrubs and grass plant areas 863,707 17.3 areas nude and low plant areas 927,316 18.6 Terrestrial Wetlands 61,408 1.2 Wetlands Coastal Wetlands 4,655 0.1 Water surface Terrestrial Water 184,663 3.7 Total 4,980,534 100 Table 2. Land use value in Konya Closed Basin (CORINE 2nd level classification; ÇOB, 2009) Source: TUBITAK CBS; ÇOB, 2009 Territory of the Konya province, flat or slightly undulating topography formed on the old lake and marine sediments and volcanic rocks. The Provence soil quality is middle degree International Conference on Applied Life Sciences (ICALS2012) 23 Turkey, September 10-12, 2012 ISALS despite moderate forces the yield limiting factors such as drainage and erosion composed of fine-grained components of this land with the water thickness. The most important limit- ing factor is water. Unconsciously irrigation activity in provinces areas made unavailable inefficient agricultural. Floods were caused serious damage in the past few years with more rainfall.