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Climate change poses a major threat for sustainability of groundwater resources. In this study, we aimed to determine how climate change can affect groundwater recharge potential in the Palas Basin. Palas Basin is a semi-arid closed basin located in Kayseri, in the central Anatolia region of Turkey. Agriculture is the major economic activity in the region and groundwater is used extensively for irrigation purposes. In this study, we estimated potential groundwater recharge for the Palas Basin under two representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) projected by the HadGEM2-ES, MPI-ESM-MR, GFDL-ESM2M global climate models. All models projected a decrease in mean annual potential groundwater recharge under the RCP8.5 scenario. Under the RCP4.5 scenario, the trends in annual potential groundwater recharge were downward according to the HadGEM2-ES and MPIESM-MR models but slightly positive according to the GFDL-ESM2M model. For the sustainability of groundwater system and agricultural activities in the basin, climate change adaptation strategies should be developed for the agricultural sector.

Considering the proliferation of global systemic risks in the Anthropocene, this short paper expresses the need to reframe sustainability as the acquisition and invention of symbiotic and regenerative diplomatic skills to make peace with the Earth, i.e. to preserve and restore the conditions of its habitability. This post-environmental paradigm shift reflects the deep transformation that is now underway in our understanding of the Earth, not as a planetary system nor as a reservoir of resources, but as a web of meanings and interactions. It manifests the social-ecological as well as the ethical implications of precaution.

The majority of scientists agree on climate change and on the most daunting environmental problems humans are facing today. Moved by a commendable desire to contribute to the solution of these problems, several scientists have decided to speak up, telling the scientific truth about climate change to decision-makers and the public. Although appreciating the commitment to intervene in the public arena, I discuss some limits of these interventions. I argue that stating the reality of climate change does not prescribe any specific solution and sometimes it seems faint in distributing responsibilities. I ask whether unveiling/knowing the truth can be enough to foster radical transformations. Can knowledge move people towards transformative actions if power relationships do not change? Various environmental justice controversies prove that even when science is certain—and this is rarely the case in that kind of controversies—knowing might be not enough in the face of power structures preventing free choices and radical changes. In the end of my article, I state that it is fair to recognize that scientists have done their parts, and it is now up to social movements to foster the radical changes in power relationships that are needed for transforming societies.

This conference paper seeks to explore the potential contributions of the peace science to the hydropolitical conflicts in Central Asia by focusing on the case of the Rogun Dam conflict between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In particular, the conference paper seeks to identify the opportunity structures available to the conflicting parties through a mixed methodology of using quantitative and qualitative data about the hydropower resources as well as water resources for agricultural use as well as the relevant countries policy options and peaceful settlement alternatives. The existing literature on water conflicts mostly focuses on water scarcity for assessing the risk of occurrence of water-related conflicts between the riparians in the transboundary river basins. More recently, the number of studies combining the physical and human-related indicators for analyzing the potential risks of hydropolitical conflicts. The conference paper suggests that based on the quantified data about water and energy nexus in the Ragun Dam area the diverse interests of the Central Asian countries in using water resources for electricity production and agricultural use set them against each other in a conflictual relationship. This is quite clear in the case of the Rogun Dam conflict between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The conference paper argues that the changes in Uzbekistan’s position on this conflict from a conflictual to a more conciliatory one could be explained with the peace science approach and data about the hydropower resources as well as water resources for agricultural use as well as the relevant countries policy options and peaceful settlement alternatives. This paper hopes to contribute to the literature by including concepts of political science and environmental economics. Various databases are used for this purpose. The paper derives water scarcity data from the AQUEDUCT database of the World Resources Institute, while the Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme of the Global Environmental Facility is employed for the following indicators: human water stress, agricultural water stress, ecosystem impacts from dams, economic dependence on water resources, enabling environment and legal framework. Hydropower data is gathered from the International Renewable Energy Agency’s Renewable Electricity Capacity and Generation Statistics as well as from the International Energy Agency. The agricultural data are compiled from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the FAOSTAT database. Specifically, the International Cotton Advisory Committee’s Data Portal will be employed for cotton agriculture data of Uzbekistan. Kapadokya Üniversitesi

This paper focuses on the changing role of energy and environment in Turkish-Bulgarian relations since the second half of the 2010s. The energy ties between the two countries strengthened since then after reaching at least two critical milestones. The first is the synchronous integration of Turkey’s electricity grid to the EU power transmission network, and the second is the TurkStream natural gas pipeline that extends towards Bulgaria. These two crucial developments necessitated Turkey’s energy laws to be in harmony with the EU regulations. On the other hand, Turkey’s environmental policies are not fully harmonious with the EU policies and rules, and bilateral environmental relations remain relatively immature. This paper compares the three aspects of Turkey’s relations with Bulgaria, i.e., natural gas trade, electricity trade, transboundary rivers. The paper investigates the perceptions and opinions of politicians, media, civil society, and political parties about energy trade and transboundary water issues. It focuses on the fundamental laws, regulations, documents, and reports of the energy and environment regulators. The paper argues that the high level of integration in the sphere of energy trade (natural gas and electricity) is boosted by mutual economic gains. As energy and environment constitute a nexus, advanced bilateral energy relations will likely to have spillover impacts on the environmental sphere during Turkey’s EU accession. Kapadokya Üniversitesi

A copolymer poly(methyl methacrylate-co-vinylferrocene) was synthesized and used for the first time in a biofuel cell design. Bioanaode enzyme glucose oxidase and biocathode enzyme bilirubin oxidase were physically immobilized onto the copolymer-modified electrodes. Characterization studies were conducted by scanning electron microscopy, carbon-13, fourier transform infrared and hydrogen-1 nuclear magnetic resonance, and cyclic voltammograms. The designed biofuel cell was operated with linear sweep voltammetry. The maximum current was at 45°C with 120 µg of polymer amount. An improved power density of 323 µW cm-2 that is higher than other ferrocene-based fuel cells was obtained with 10-mM glucose at 0.4 V with the designed bioanode. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This work was supported by the Scientific & Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) under Grant 112Y100 and the Bulent Ecevit University Research Fund under Grant BEU-2013-77047330-01. BEU-2013-77047330-01 112Y100

As we are living through a transformative response to a viral pandemic, this think piece suggests a reimagining of the environmental humanities in the open-ended inventories of feminist posthumanities and the low trophic registers of the oceanic. Sea farming of low trophic species such as seaweeds and bivalves is still underexplored option for the mitigation of climate change and diminishing species diversity in the warming oceans of the world. The affordances of low trophic mariculture for coastal life and for contributing to society’s transition into climate aware practices of eating, socializing and thinking is here considered, and showcased as an example of the practical uses of feminist environmental posthumanities.

Hydropower mobilizes local resources, is carbon-free, and provides cheap and clean electricity with an impact on the environment that is considerably lower than that of fossil fuels. For many years, water was considered an economic commodity from which to benefit materially, and the utilization of water potential for the generation of electricity was viewed as a step toward development, and hence, the modernization of Turkey. This turned the construction of large dams into one of the focal points of the political agenda and a target of the economic development plans, being considered a remedy to the increasing demand for electricity resulting from rapid industrialization and urbanization. However, Turkey is not a water-rich country. Once considered an abundant natural resource, the per capita freshwater stocks continue to decline due to climate change, while the use of water has increased over the years. To achieve its ultimate desire to become an economically and socially modern country, Turkey adopted several development models and founded a number of state entities that were set the task of exploiting the nation’s energy resources, including its hydropower potential, in the earliest days of the Republic. Later in the liberal period of the 2000s, new regulations accelerated the construction of hydropower plants (HPP) by private entrepreneurs, although not without stirring up tensions between the local people and environmentalists on one side and entrepreneurs and official bodies on the other. Kapadokya Üniversitesi

Globally, travel and tourism sector were hit hard by the impacts of the Covid-19 restrictions and lockdowns. In Turkey, the total contribution of travel and tourism to the GDP was more than halved in 2020 as compared to the previous year. While the sudden stop in 2020 had a negative impact on the sector, it created a unique opportunity to redesign a more resilient long-term tourism strategy. Based on multi-stakeholder cooperation, Turkish tourism authorities build the post-Covid recovery strategy on competitiveness and sustainability while aiming at increasing the income generated from tourism activities. This conference paper analyzes Turkey’s post-Covid sustainable tourism strategy from the perspective of changing consumer behaviors, pre-and post-Covid tourism demand, and the impact of sustainability on tourism competitiveness.

In this article, we examine the link between environmental consciousnesses and time consciousness. We argue that the way people think about time shapes their experience of climate change threats. We contrast western hegemonic concepts of time—the Gregorian Calendar, the Dooms Day Clock, linear time—with the way Barbudans of Antigua and Barbuda, an island nation in the Caribbean experience time—cyclical, through boom and bust cycles. We found that this boom and bust framework was indeed supported by climate change and weather experiences on the island—hurricanes, droughts, changes in the lagoons—as well as economic experiences—cargo boat delays bringing supplies, paycheck delays. By understanding local explanatory models of time, especially those that contrast to western climate science frameworks of time, better solution-driven work can be achieved in the face of climate change realities.