Droughts are transforming the Turkish landscape with massive sinkholes

The "breadbasket" of Turkey, Konya's valleys are filled with the farms needed to feed a growing nation. But the available groundwater is drying up and causing fields to collapse.

In a green field of freshly-watered ground, patrolled by four dogs with short legs and big barks, a stretch of thin razor wire twists in a circle. On the other side of the wire, the ground falls away. A chasm has opened in the middle of this field, deep enough that standing on the edge could make anyone treacherously dizzy.

Two years ago, the ground collapsed, adding one more to the large number of sinkholes in Konya, a province in central Turkey. Mehmet Akıf Işıklı gazes into this sinkhole on his neighbour's farm, a match for the one that opened up in the middle of his own field.

Işıklı's farm outside of Karapınar is a family business, and he's been farming since 1995. He grows alfalfa, corn, wheat and other contract crops, and he has the first company growing seed corn in Karapınar. Smack in the middle of his own field is another crater – a sinkhole that opened nearly 20 years ago and punctuates a lush field like an asteroid crater. "We were in our field when the villagers informed us [about the sinkhole]. When we arrived, the land had just begun to collapse, and there was water bubbling and boiling within it," Işıklı says. 

Konya is plagued by rapidly proliferating sinkholes. In central Anatolia, where the agricultural fields of corn and wheat and beets stretch out for miles and miles, the ground looks like it has been attacked by a cosmic hole punch, punctuated by a plague of craters. According to the Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), 684 of these massive abysses have opened in the Konya basin, with one of the largest stretching to 228m (752ft) in diameter and 171m (564ft) deep, marring the region often called the "breadbasket of Turkey". But they are not the result of bombs or meteors or anything from above. The problem is below the surface.

Turkey has been seized by ongoing drought, with a United Nations report predicting that Turkey would become a water-poor country by 2030. This is exacerbating existing water scarcity problems throughout the country, making lakes dry up and agriculture falter. Konya's sinkhole problem is a perfect storm of geology, drought and intensive agriculture draining the groundwater.

In order to compensate for the lack of water brought on by the drought, local farmers are illegally tapping into the groundwater. The natural disaster, combined with irresponsible agricultural practices that include siphoning away the groundwater for crops, has left a devastating mark on Konya, creating these new hazards that pockmark the land in all directions, and potentially harming Turkey's food security. 

Konya is located in a closed basin, a rare geological quirk that means the rivers and underground water that feed it never reach the sea, instead pooling in a series of lakes. The groundwater is key to the entire water system of this agricultural region. The Konya Basin is full of salt lakes, freshwater lakes, marshlands and other biodiverse water spots, all sustained by groundwater that balances out the soft karst rock of the ground. But without the underground water, those structures quickly weaken.

"Water, underground rivers in this case, act as underground structures that hold the humidity and the stability, strength of these karstic areas," says Güven Eken, founder of Doğa Derneği, a an environmental agency based in Turkey. "The water capacity is decreasing there because of the wrong excess irrigation policies; these underground rivers have virtually dried out. So the water which once flowed underneath the Konya basin is no longer there. The whole system has dried out." 

In the closed basin, farmers have relied for many years on underground wells,........

© BBC