Water Saving in Konya

Our city, which is located in Konya Basin, is one of the 25 river basins in Turkey and gets rainfall below the Turkey average. In Konya, despite the declining average rainfall each year, increasing population and production have raised the use of water in one of Turkey’s flag carrier cities in agriculture and animal husbandry.

The geopolitical importance of Konya has increased with the fight against climate change and the risk of drought, which are spoken all over the world. Continuous increase in production directly or indirectly increases water consumption. Water, which is the main input of production in every field from industrial production to agricultural production, is a natural resource that should be emphasized especially for our future. The fact that human beings cannot produce the water their consumption brings the more optimal use of scarce resources.
Although domestic use comes to mind when it comes to water consumption, the truth is that more water is used in agriculture.71% of the fresh water in the world is used in agriculture, 18% in industry and 11% in domestic use. Therefore, it is more essential for us to encourage more efficient use of water in agriculture and industry. The choice and support of drip irrigation systems instead of wild irrigation is a good example of this. 
When it comes to Konya, Konya Metropolitan Municipality and Konya Water and Sewerage Administration (KOSKİ) are conducting awareness studies on water conservation throughout the city. Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Uğur İbrahim Altay’s calls and action plans on water saving will set an example.
In 2020, the waste of 13 million m3 water was able to be prevented by different methods such as; the water from dams was sent to purification units via transmission lines, the missing and leakage of water was decreased by sending it safely to the last consumer from the source via storage and pump systems.    
In Konya water used domestic, industrial and agricultural was brought in usage again. With the system called Purple Network, 72 thousand and 772 m3 purified water was evaluated again in order to be used in irrigation in 2020. Moreover, with the water-saving equipment called aerator, it is advised to save about 90 % in houses.
In annual plans of Metropolitan Municipality, Konya is acting according to the Turkey National Water Plan and social responsibility studies have also been conducted in every area to prevent wastage of water. Especially, at schools blue flag has been started to be applied and water teams have set up. This has led our children to learn water saving at early ages and is a very successful attempt. Also, in order to teach our children water saving, even a single drop, in their social and domestic lives, educational movies have been prepared.   
These studies can be reached from institutional social media sites.
As Turkey is located in semi-arid climate zone, to improve water quality, to increase available water amount, to sustain the balance between preservation and usage have become a government policy and it is a civic responsibility. 
It will be easier to leave a cleaner and a world with saved resources to the future if we are able to take simple precautions. We would do a great favour for our children if only we could hinder the wastage of water while we are washing our hands or we could turn off the faucet during shower while we don’t use.  
We hope to appreciate running water and value even a drop of it.