Murat Kankal

Estimation of suspended sediment concentration from turbidity measurements using artificial neural networks

Suspended sediment concentration (SSC) is generally determined from the direct measurement of sediment concentration of river or from sediment transport equations. Direct measurement is very costly and cannot be conducted for all river gauge stations. Therefore, correct estimation of suspended sediment amount carried by a river is very important in terms of water pollution, channel navigability, reservoir filling, fish habitat, river aesthetics and scientific interests. This study investigates the feasibility of using turbidity as a surrogate for SSC as in situ turbidity meters are being increasingly used to generate continuous records of SSC in rivers. For this reason, regression analysis (RA) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) were employed to estimate SSC based on in situ turbidity measurements. The SSC was firstly experimentally determined for the surface water samples collected from the six monitoring stations along the main branch of the stream Harsit, Eastern Black Sea Basin, Turkey. There were 144 data for each variable obtained on a fortnightly basis during March 2009 and February 2010. In the ANN method, the used data for training, testing and validation sets are 108, 24 and 12 of total 144 data, respectively. As the results of analyses, the smallest mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) values for validation set were obtained from the ANN method with 11.40 and 17.87, respectively. However these were 19.12 and 25.09 for RA. It was concluded that turbidity could be a surrogate for SSC in the streams, and the ANNs method used for the estimation of SSC provided acceptable results.

Importance of hydropower for sustainable energy development in Turkey: Case of Çoruh River

This study investigates the sustainable development of hydropower in Turkey, focusing on development of Çoruh River. Çoruh Basin, which has magnificent dams, is one of the five largest basins in Turkey and represents 5.2% of the national gross hydropower potential (433 GWh/year). When all currently planned projects in Çoruh Basin are completed, the hydropower potential will reach 13,315 GWh/year, corresponding to 58.8% of the gross potential in Çoruh River and 5.12% of the annual electric energy production of Turkey in 2015.

The status of transboundary rivers in Turkey

Turkey, like many countries today, faces challenges in efficiently developing and managing its water resources while working to maintain water quality and protect the environment. This situation causes that the transboundary rivers in Turkey have been the most important. In this study, issues relating the development and management of the transboundary rivers of Turkey are discussed. For this purpose, this paper analyses the general characteristics, climate and water resources, current water usage status, and energy potential of the transboundary rivers, namely Euphrates-Tigris, Çoruh, Orontes, Kura-Arax, and Maritza. In addition, two significance development plans, which are the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) and the Çoruh River Development Plan located in the transboundary rivers, are evaluated. The total feasible hydropower potential of projects reaches 37896 GW h/yr when all planned projects are completed. This value corresponds to 16.5% of the annual electric energy production of the Turkey in 2011. The GAP will also irrigate 1058509 hectare of land area.