A system dynamics approach to strategic groundwater management in Çumra Region of Konya Closed Basin

Water is an essential input in agriculture; farmers all over the world depend on water availability to boost their production and profit. Lack of available surface water, especially in arid or semi-arid regions, render groundwater a vital resource for the continuity of agriculture. Konya Closed Basin is a semi-arid watershed located in Central Anatolia, Turkey. It has significant agricultural potential and is referred to as "the granary of the country" by Turkish people. In recent years, Konya Closed Basin has been brought to both local and national agenda, with its water scarcity and groundwater stress. In this research, we adopt a participatory system dynamics approach for exploring the drivers of unsustainable groundwater use and to build a shared understanding on future sustainable pathways in Çumra, an administrative district within Konya Closed Basin, Turkey. Following 3 field visits and 3 participatory model building workshops, we built a dynamic simulation model, and tested multiple environmental scenarios and policies that have been suggested by the stakeholders, such as inter-basin water transfer, crop rotation, crop repricing, well regulation, and groundwater extraction caps. The model simulates the 2004-2044 period on annual bases. The model structure and parameter values represent the field conditions in Çumra, and it is initialized based on the 2004 data. Based on the scenario and policy analyses performed in this research, the declining trend in the groundwater table in Çumra is not irreversible; when certain sets of policies are implemented, groundwater can be sustained while maintaining the desired agricultural production and farmer profits.