Political ecology of inter-basin water transfers in Turkey: the case of melen stream

Istanbul, Turkey's cultural and economic capital with around 20 million residents, uses resources, particularly water, from far beyond its borders. Even though the city has always had trouble providing fresh water to its citizens, its current size necessitated a number of costly solutions to meet the growing demand, some of which took the form of inter-basin water transfer projects, such as the "Great Melen Project", the second-biggest water transfer project in the country. The project forced the evacuation of a number of villages expected to flood, by using urgent expropriation decisions. This thesis focuses on Ortaköy village, evacuated in 2014, by conducting a series of in-depth interviews with various stakeholders, especially with former residents of the village, to learn more about how this project has affected people's lives in the area. The findings demonstrate how, despite the project being hailed as a technological and engineering marvel, the Melen region is being sacrificed—and quite easily—for the sake of the nation's economic growth ideals (embodied in the image İstanbul), and how these ideals are used form consent among the villagers.