İzmir expands water cuts as reservoirs dry up
IZMIR
After days of restricted water access in the popular resort town of Çeşme, authorities have announced that the broader İzmir province will also be subjected to nightly water cuts starting Aug. 6.
As part of emergency conservation measures, water will be shut off between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. daily in areas identified as having excessive usage across the city.
The decision follows a meeting of İzmir’s water authority İZSU’s council, which reported that the city consumes around 700,000 cubic meters of water each day.
Tahtalı Dam, one of İzmir’s primary sources of drinking water, has fallen to a critically low level, and water transfers from the Gördes Dam have stopped altogether, authorities said.
Unless the situation improves, daytime cuts may follow in the near future, local media reported.
Authorities had already announced mandatory cuts between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. in the city’s touristic hub of Çeşme starting July 25 due to the water level falling below 5 percent capacity in one of the town’s main reservoirs.
As conditions worsened, the outage window was extended to 10 hours per night as of July 31.
As water levels receded, the old İzmir-Çeşme highway, submerged since the dam’s construction, has reemerged and is now visible once again.
In Germiyan village near Çeşme, residents are now forced to drill as deep as 170 meters to reach groundwater.
“Our parents used to draw water from a depth of eight or nine meters,” said village head Ali Alyanak. “Now we have to go down to 170.”
The growing crisis in İzmir reflects a broader national trend.
Türkiye is already classified as “water-stressed” according to the internationally recognized Falkenmark Index, and experts warn the country may soon fall into the “water-poor” category within five years
