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During the construction and especially water filling periods of Keban and Atatürk dams in the Euphrates River Basin, there have been a series of high level political tensions among Turkey, Syria, and Iraq for the allocation of trans-boundary water resources. It has been claimed that those large investments not only contribute to those investing countries but also to those affected ones. This research measures the contributions and impacts of major investments on the basin to the riparian countries. And how spatial land use decisions on irrigated agricultural areas in rival basin countries are made by means of optimization techniques. The model application is based on with and without analyses for the selected group of dams, which are Keban, Karakaya, Atatürk, Ilisu, Tabqa, Haditha, and Mosul dams, Habbaniye Reservoir, and Urfa Tunnels. The mixed integer programming (MIP) based on the Inter Temporal Euphrates and Tigris River Basin Model (ITETRBM) is used as an optimization tool for the necessary analysis. The impacts are presented by countries and by the generated economic benefits, water withdrawals, coverage areas of irrigated agricultural land, cities feasibly supplied from the reservoirs. The results have shown that large reservoirs in Turkey provide extensive contribution to the basin countries especially during drought periods when all major reservoir investments are considered together. That can be considered as potential for coalition during drought periods instead of competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on transboundary water resources allocation modelling is still short on encompassing and analyzing complex geographic multiparty nature of basins. This study elaborates the Inter Temporal Euphrates and Tigris River Basin Model (ITETRBM), which is a linear programming based transboundary water resources allocation model maximizing net economic benefit from allocation of scarce water resources to energy generation, urban, and agricultural uses. The elaborations can be categorized in two directions: First, agricultural and urban demand nodes are spatially identified with their relative elevations and distances to water resources supplies (dams, reservoirs, and lakes). Digital elevation model (DEM) database are intensely processed in geographic information system (GIS) environment. Second, the agricultural irrigable lands are restructured into a pixel based decision making units (DMUs) in order to be able to see the spatial extent of optimally irrigated land, and then optimization program is converted from linear programming (LP) to a mixed integer programming (MIP). The model applications are designed to cover a series of sensitivity analyses encompassing the various transboundary management, energy and agricultural use value, and transportation cost scenarios over the optimal uses of the Euphrates and Tigris Basin (ETRB) resources. The model results are visually presented via GIS in order to show the transboundary upstream and downstream spatial impacts of these selected parameters. The findings are i) system parameters significantly alter the spatial extent of water resources allocation in the ETRB, and ii) the magnitudes of the parameters also explains the tradeoffs between agriculture and energy sectors as much as upstream and downstream water uses of countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are varying and inconsistent claims among countries sharing the same river basins. While upstream countries are asserting that they regulate flows through built-up reservoirs (enabling flood prevention) and reduce seasonal flow variations (providing water during drought seasons), downstream countries criticize upstream countries for excessive withdrawals and declining annual flows. Behind the scene, almost every basin country unilaterally envisions of ambitious projects demanding extensive water withdrawals for their prospective development and growth. This study establishes a methodology to measure the rational economic and political impacts of extensive reservoir projects throughout a basin, using the case of the Euphrates and Tigris. This methodology uses both linear programming applications calculating country and coalition benefits, and game theory concepts (core and Shapley value) for evaluating the impacts of reservoirs. The Euphrates and Tigris River Basin Model (ETRBM) is extended by adding the time dimension. In conjunction with time, reservoir capacities are incorporated into the model as a new set of parameters enabling resources allocations over multiple periods. In a rational economic view, the existence of reservoirs, while providing certain advantages in allocating water overtime, provides varying geopolitical powers to upstream and downstream basin countries. As a result of model applications, it is observed that basin-wide coalitions may potentially eliminate construction of excessive reservoir capacities, and, therefore, unnecessary investment costs and evaporation losses. It is also observed that assuming the absence of downstream reservoirs, the upstream reservoirs provide significant, first, economic benefit to the all forms of coalitions with upstream country and associated parties and, second, power to the country having the reservoirs in any coalition scenario. However, again in a game theoretic perspective, the power of upstream countries looses some of its weight when downstream reservoirs are incorporated. During drought years, the availability of reservoirs ensures extensive core solutions and encourages a grand coalition among all parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]