River Basin Planning in Türkiye

Technical assistance supported Türkiye local river authorities in better understanding their river basin system through the WFD-Explorer tool and a Companion Modelling (ComMod) approach, enabling the identification, testing, and selection of the most suitable measures for the basin, taking governance and regulatory context into account.

A key element of Türkiye’s National River Basin Management Strategy is to establish a modelling approach for the management of the country’s complex and vulnerable water resources in a practical and pragmatic way. The project introduced the WFD-Explorer, a modelling platform originally developed in the Netherlands to support the river basin planning cycle, analyze the water quality, the effectiveness of measures, and ensure compliance with EU requirements. Combined with a Companion Modelling (ComMod) approach, the tool helped local water authorities build a shared understanding of their river basin system, simulating hydrology, ecology, and polluting loads, and calculating Environmental Quality Ratios (EQRs) to evaluate and compare the status of water bodies.

This participatory process allowed stakeholders to identify, test, and decide on the most suitable packages of measures for the basin, taking into account not only technical and cost-effectiveness criteria but also the governance and regulatory context in which decisions had to be implemented. The project was carried out through four well-defined phases: preparation, model development, dissemination, and the design of a road map for expansion, with the approach piloted together with technical and local stakeholders in the Büyük Menderes river basin, including scenario calculations and dissemination of results.

Alongside model development, the project placed emphasis on capacity building, with training sessions delivered in both the Netherlands and Türkiye to ensure Turkish institutions could apply and sustain the tool independently.

The project contributed to strengthening river basin planning in Türkiye by:

• Supporting local water authorities to better understand their river basin system through the WFD-Explorer tool and a Companion Modelling approach.
• Developing all software tools through a participatory modelling approach with key technical stakeholders.
• Enabling the identification, testing, and selection of the most suitable measures for the basin, considering governance and regulatory context.
• Piloting the approach with technical and local stakeholders in the Büyük Menderes river basin, including scenario calculations.
• Delivering training sessions in the Netherlands and Türkiye to build lasting technical capacity.