Freshwater fishing and its development in Elaziğ

Our research area Elazığ is in Upper Euphrates part of the southwest of Eastern Anatolia Region. Its total surface area is 9.281 square kilometres in which 8.455 square kilometres is land and 826 square kilometres of its surface ares is dam and natural lake area. Altitude of Elazığ is 1.067 meter and its land form consists mountainous , plateau and plains. Provincial court of Elazığ constitutes 0.12 % of Turkey?s land and it was located between 40° 21' and 38° 30' East longitutes and 38° 17' ile 39° 11' north latitues. Elazığ which roughly looks like a rectangle in terms of its shape, has about 150 km length in E-W direction and about 65 km width in N-S direction.The most important river within the boundaries of city is Euphrates and its tributaries. Hazar Lake which is 86 square kilometres is 30 kilometres away from city centre. Moreover , Elazığ is is surrounded with significant dam lakes such as Keban, Karakaya, Kralkızı and Özlüce.Water products fishing has a long history because of the Hazar lake and Euphrates River which is formed by the combination of Murat and Karasu Rivers. However , water products fishing has not provided the expected improvement.In Elazığ , besides water products fishing , aquaculture has significant share as well. Especially having been surrounded by water on three sides is the main factor in the improvement of culture fishery. Keban dam lake which surrounds the city is a highly appropriate area for fish growers. On the other hand , Hazar lake in Sivrice county which is equavalent to a tectonic depression is also another important area for fish farming.It is not possible to increase the amount of fish by means of fishing. Expanding the fish farming with planned and programmed ways is the healtiest and the most rational way to satify protein deficit of increasingly growing population from white meat.If an increase in fish production is neeeded then new facilities must be established , capacity of present enterprises must be increased and utilised effectively.In Elazığ amount of water productions that are obtained by farming is regularly increasing. In the last one year , increase in capacity is more than half of the last year?s capacity. According to the present potential in Elazığ , it is known that this increase will go on in the forthcoming years and industry related to this has been expected.Figures for annual per capita fish consumption in the province of Elazığ are far below Turkey and world averages. While world average is 7,6 kg/year in Turkey per capita fish consumption is 8 kg/year. While in EU countries and in USA per capita fish consumption respectively 19 kg person/year and 28 kg person/year , this amount is 65.2 kg person/year in developed countries such as Japan however in developing countries ( e.g. Mexico and Argentina) 13,8 kg person/year. Moreover there are some countries which are far above this average. Per capita fish consumption in Japan is 70.6 kg/year , in Iceland it is estimated as 91 kg/year. When compared with those figures it is seen that fish consumption in Elazığ appears to be very little or no.In this postgraduate thesis that researches freshwater fishery in Elazığ , our aim is to reach production rates that are obtained through fishing and farming , improvement of these facilities in the course of time , how to reach existing potential in present situation, public awareness about fish meat and other information about present situation. We have evaluated these data. At the end of the research we make some suggestions to upgrade present situation.