Determination of Drinking Water Basin Protection Zones: Case of Beyşehir Basin, Türkiye

Abstract

Global climate change, one of the most important problems of today, and human activities have negative effects on the sustainability of natural resources. It has become necessary to establish planning and management mechanisms for the sustainable use of drinking water basins within the protection-use balance. Beyşehir Basin, Türkiye was chosen as the study area. The aim of this study is to present a new model approach for the use of Analytical Hierarchy Process and Geographic Information Systems, based on the unique topographic, hydrological, and environmental characteristics of the basin, in the determination of the drinking water basin protection zones. Thirteen criteria, which affect the reaching of the pollutants to the water surface and reflect the topographic, hydrological, and environmental characteristics of the basin, were used in the determination of the protection zones. As a result of the study, it was determined that 2.83% of the basin is in the absolute protection zone, 44.97% in the short-range protection zone, 35.93% in the medium-range protection zone and 16.26% in the long-range protection zone. In the last stage, the conservation areas determined by the current legal regulations for the basin and the protection zones determined by the model approach were spatially and areally compared. According to the results of the comparison, it was determined with the proposed protection model that the absolute protection, the short-range protection, and the medium-range protection zones increased areally, and the spatial distributions of these protection zones were shaped according to the structure of the basin.