Ankara City Council (AKK) completed the "Respect for Water Meetings" organized for the efficient use of water and announced the final statement of the "Respect for Water Report". In the declaration, which draws attention to the fact that all decision makers on central and local basis should design their future planning in advance, the measures to be taken against the risk of drought are listed, while the evaluation of domestic wastewater and all the streams and water assets in the Capital, especially the Imrahor Valley, Mogan and Eymir Lake, feed the water system. It was emphasized that drainage networks should be protected.
Ankara City Council (AKK) has completed the "Respect for Water Meetings", which it started against the efficient use of water and the risk of drought.
With the press conference organized by AKK Başkent Ankara Environment and Climate Assembly and Water Working Group, the final statement of the meetings was announced under the name of “Respect for Water Report”. Ankara City Council Executive Board Chairman Halil İbrahim Yılmaz attended the meeting, AKK Environment and Climate Assembly. Sözcüsü Ömer Şan, AKK Rural Development Working Group Sözcüsü Kenan Baydar, AKK Water Working Group Sözcüs Prof. Dr. Nilgül Karadeniz and Public Health Working Group Representative Mehmet Tüfekçi attended.
CALL FROM AKK TO DECISION MAKERS
In the final statement, which was called "We call on all plans and plans and selfish behaviors that only think about the present and act as if they will not happen to future generations," it was pointed out that central and local decision makers have important duties.
In the final declaration emphasizing the need to protect the drainage networks feeding the water system of the Imrahor Valley, Mogan and Eymir Lakes, other measures to be taken for the efficient use of water are listed as follows:
First of all, it should be decided to protect the visible or invisible ones of all existing natural assets, especially water. Plans, projects and practices that will irreversibly damage forests, valleys, plains, streams and plateaus should not be accepted under any circumstances.
The protection of drainage networks in upper-scale plans and the creation of green corridors that will ensure the continuity of the streams in their natural beds are not only a planning decision, but also a decision that will significantly support the protection of water resources, reducing the pressure on the sewer network in the discharge of rainwater and the climate resilience of the city. In this sense, the drainage networks feeding the Imrahor Valley, Mogan and Eymir water systems and other valley systems under the pressure of construction should be protected.
In the medium and long term, the current status of the streams - visible or invisible - valleys and all related water assets in Ankara should be determined, protection, development and repair plans should be prepared and these plans should form the basis for all urban and rural interventions.
In order to make the city and countryside healthier, more livable and resilient, necessary studies should be initiated to bring to light the streams, which are the lifeblood of Ankara and the region we live in, but are now confined underground.
Building decisions and zoning practices, which cause an increase in impermeable surface in the urban transformation process, destroy the existing vegetation and tree existence, and eliminate the natural drainage networks, adversely affect the sustainability of surface and underground water resources. Such a transformation also threatens the climate-resilient development of the city. For this reason, central and local governments should urgently evaluate existing urban transformation practices in coordination with planning, zoning, environment, climate and water administrations.
Necessary managerial studies should be carried out for rainwater harvesting and gray water (domestic waste water) usage technologies in order to increase alternative water resources by determining the lack of alternative water resource diversity at micro and macro scale.
For the future of the Kızılırmak and Sakarya basins, which provide Ankara's water resources, 'protective-preventive' steps should be taken as soon as possible. Seeing that almost all central and local administrators have not taken responsibility in this direction until today, we would like to draw attention to this issue again and again. Depending on all the critical processes we are currently experiencing, we believe that the managers who will undertake all these responsibilities and the understanding of management should be expressed strongly.
According to the Drinking Water Master Plan commissioned by the ASKİ General Directorate for the 2050s, it has been determined that there is a water loss of around 40 percent in the city center system. This water loss rate should be reduced to 25 percent. Rehabilitation investments required for this should be started as soon as possible.
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