Aquaplan project - Impacts of the GAP in Turkey on the downsream riparian Euphrates water users

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Impacts of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) in Turkey on the performance of the Tabqa dam and hydropower plant in Syria

by Quentin Goor¹, Ali Alia², Pieter van der Zaag³ and Amaury Tilmant³

¹Dept of Environmental Sciences and Land Use Planning, Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
² Syrian Ministry of Water Resources
³ Dept of Management and Institutions, UNESCO-IHE (Delft, The Netherlands)

Abstract :

Marjor Upper Euphrates dams

Water resources systems development in the upper parts of a river asin can have major impacts on downstream users. This paper analyses the impacts of development of the southeastern Anatolia Project (Turkey), commonly called GAP, on the Euphrates downstream riparian countries, Syria and raq, and especially on the performance of the Tabqa dam in Syria. A two-stage modelling approach has been adopted. First, the operating rules of the largest GAP reservoirs are optimized and then simulated using a stochastic dual dynamic programming (SDDP) model to get, among other results, time series of simulated discharges at the borders with Syria and Iraq. This process is repeated for three development scenarios of the GAP. In the second stage, the reservoir operating policies of the Tabqa hydropower plant in Syria are derived from a stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) model and then simulated over a planning period of 50 years using the time series of inflows produced by SDDP for each development scenario. The analysis of results reveals, amongst other things, that if GAP is completed as planned, the risk of not meeting the annual Syrian energy target increases substantially (up to 60%).

Empirical CDF of annual energy production at Tabqa for the three GAP development scenarios

These research results have been presented at the IUGG 2007 meeting that took place in July in Perugia, Italy (IUGG 2007 General Assembly web site)

The full paper can be found in :

Goor Q., Alia A., van der Zaag P. and Tilmant A. Impacts of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) in Turkey on the performance of the Tabqa dam and hydropower plant in Syria. Changes in Water Resources Systems: Methodologies to Maintain Water Security and Ensure Integrated Management – IAHS Publ. 315, 2007.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 07 May 2008 )

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