Afrin (river)
| Afrin | ||
 Croaking frogs. About eight kilometers south of the city of Afrin near the Hittite archaeological site of Tell Ain Dara |
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| Data | ||
| location | Syria , Turkey | |
| River system | Orontes | |
| Drain over | Orontes → Mediterranean | |
| source | Kartal Mountains, Turkey | |
| muzzle | At Antakya in the Orontes coordinates: 36 ° 19 ′ 29 ″ N , 36 ° 15 ′ 40 ″ E 36 ° 19 ′ 29 ″ N , 36 ° 15 ′ 40 ″ E |
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| Mouth height |
80 m
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| length | 149 km | |
| Catchment area | 1717 km² | |
| Right tributaries | Sabun | |
The Afrin , Arabic عفرين, DMG ʿAfrīn , also Nahr Afrin, Kurdish Efrîn, in Seleucid times Oinopara , in Roman times Ufrenus , is a 149 km long river that rises in Turkey , flows through northwest Syria and in the Turkish province of Hatay in the Nahr al -Asi (Orontes) flows.
geography
The source rivers of the Afrin lie west of Gaziantep in the up to 1,496 meter high Kartal Mountains and have a generally southerly flow direction to the Turkish-Syrian border . A north-south watershed runs a few kilometers from the headwaters in the direction of Gaziantep. The region to the east of it, the ancient landscape of Kommagene , no longer drains into the Mediterranean, but into the Euphrates valley . The Sabun River, the largest tributary of the river, flows into the Afrin on the right-hand side at Nebi Huri, just below the national border . Between the headwaters of Afrin and Sabun lies the mountain ridge of Kardalar Dagh, which is 1200 meters high.
The hilly to mountainous region north and south of the border is a plateau that is cut through by numerous valleys and has received the name of the highest mountain Kurd Dagh as a cultural landscape . Between Nebi Huri and the city of Afrin , light and gray-blue layers of marl are exposed on the rocky hills , some of which are slatey and easily disintegrate. These layers, which date from the Eocene , form flat, round hills between the numerous branching wadis .
Grain cultivation is possible in the plains; where the hills are not too stony, extensive olive groves have given the region its characteristic appearance since pre-Christian times. The small scattered settlements consist mainly of simple houses and do not reveal any major investments.
South of the city of Afrin, the economic conditions and agriculture have changed significantly. Until it crosses again into Turkey, the Afrin flows in a southerly, later south-westerly direction through a wide valley fertile through deep red soils. In the strip fields typical of the western Syrian old settlements, intensive irrigation farming is carried out here, similar to the Ghab plain further south of the central Orontes. The irrigation does not come from the Afrin, the flow rate of which is far too low in the summer months, but from the groundwater supply by diesel pumps. The villages in the valley south of the town of Afrin are (like Basuta ) surrounded by pomegranate plantations. The villages are more affluent than those in the north and expand along the thoroughfare. Cotton , which requires a lot of water, is grown in the dry summer months. The sowing of cotton takes place in April, the harvest takes place in October. Melons, citrus fruits, figs, grapes and vegetables are also of great economic importance and achieve high yields.
After the Turkish border, which the Afrin crosses to the west at Reyhanli , after a few kilometers it flows into the Nahr al-Asi (Orontes) as the largest tributary. Also shortly before Antakya , the Kara Su flows as another and last tributary like this one from the right, northern side. Both rivers are canalized for the last few kilometers. Until the beginning of the 20th century, they first fed the Amik lake ( Turkish : Amik Gölü, in Ottoman times: Ak Deniz) before it drained into the Orontes. The lake was northeast of the ancient city of Antioch in the middle of the Amik plain, which is 100 meters high. The lake and lower reaches of the Afrin were probably navigable at that time. From here, in Roman times, a road led through the fertile agricultural area to Kyrrhos (today's Nebi Huri) and on to the Euphrates.
The Amik Lake, together with the extensive swamp areas on its edges, covered an area of 31,000 hectares. It was used for irrigation and fishing; as a sanctuary for migratory birds, it was one of the most important ecosystems in Turkey. From the 1940s, the lake began to be drained in order to gain land for growing cotton. The second goal, the eradication of malaria , was achieved, but the side effects were considerable. These include the high costs of drainage, the destruction of an ecosystem and the destruction of the centuries-old livelihood of the local population. In the 1950s, around 50,000 people settled in 70 villages around the lake. Their sources of income were cattle breeding, agriculture (grain and vegetables), fishing (up to 300 tons per year), the harvest of sedge (for building houses, as mats and baskets for sale) and hunting. The final drainage of the lake area dragged on until the 1970s. Nevertheless, in spring there are frequent floods in the area of the former lake. In 2003, a flood flooded 7,000 hectares of land and parts of villages.
Water use and ecology
Of the 149 kilometers total length of the Afrin, 68 kilometers are in Syria. The annual mean flow rate is 227 million cubic meters. Of all tributaries coming from Turkey (Afrin, Kara Su and Ofor), the Orontes receives 260 million cubic meters of water. According to another study, it is 310 million. The catchment area of the Orontes in Syria is 21,624 square kilometers, of which 19,907 square kilometers are accounted for by the Orontes and 1,717 square kilometers by the Afrin basin.
A planned dam on the Afrin is to irrigate 20,000 hectares of land between Aleppo and the Turkish border with a capacity of 230 million cubic meters. All the dams on the Orontes and its tributaries collectively store 600 million cubic meters of water. The construction of dams is generally delayed due to initially unsecured financing and insufficient planning.
A Turkish dam project planned for the period 1995 to 2006 is the Reyhanli dam for irrigation of the Amik plain. A contract for construction was only signed in June 2009. With a capacity of 460 million cubic meters, it will irrigate an agricultural area of 60,000 hectares. Problems for arable farming in the Amik plain have been the heavy loamy soils with a high proportion of lime, which are poorly drained. The use of salty water for field irrigation has increased the salt content of the soil and insufficient fertilizer application to the cotton monocultures has reduced the nutrient content.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Max Blanckenhorn : The Eocene in Syria, with special reference to northern Syria. In: Journal of the German Geological Society XLII. Tape. Wilhelm Hertz , Berlin 1890, pp. 318–376. Here pp. 327–329 online as PDF ( memento of the original from December 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Eugen Wirth : Syria, a geographical country study. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1971, p. 250 f
- ↑ Axel Gebhardt: Imperial politics and provincial development. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2002, p. 68
- ↑ Vedak Caliskan: Human-Induced Degradation Wetland: A case study of Lake Amik (Southern Turkey). ( Memento of February 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.1 MB)
- ^ Arnon Soffer: Rivers of Fire: The Conflict Over Water in the Middle East. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham 1999, p. 206
- ^ Greg Shapland: Rivers of Discord: International Water Disputes in the Middle East. Palgrave MacMillan, Hampshire 1997, p. 144. ISBN 0-312-16522-6
- ^ Arnon Soffer, p. 208
- ↑ Şeref Kiliç, Necat Ağca, Mehmet Yalçin: Soils of Amik Plain (Turkey): Properties and Classification. Journal of Agronomy 3 (4), 2004, pp. 291–295 ( abstract )
