نوع مقاله : علمی - پژوهشی
موضوعات
عنوان مقاله English
نویسندگان English
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Future generations face the threat of water scarcity and the depletion of aquifers, rivers, and other water resources, as well as the decline of fisheries and fisheries. Six types of environmental change can lead to conflict and conflict between political and identity groups: climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions, ozone layer depletion, degradation and loss of fertile agricultural land, deforestation, reduction and pollution of freshwater resources, and decline in fishing due to the depletion of fisheries. Environmental change, population growth, and the unequal social distribution of resources are the main factors contributing to the scarcity of renewable resources. The term environmental change refers to the reduction in the quality or quantity of renewable resources caused by human activities, which usually occurs faster than they can be replenished by natural processes. Environmental change is only one of three major factors contributing to the scarcity of renewable resources. The second factor is the growing population, which reduces access to a resource by dividing it among more people. The third factor is the unequal social distribution of resources, which makes resources available to more people. Therefore, environmental problems arising from the water scarcity crisis in its various dimensions, especially the provision of fresh water for human consumption, are among the most important components affecting the national security of countries. In today's world, security issues, in addition to traditional concepts such as military power and deterrence, include new issues such as global warming, water scarcity crisis, air pollution, soil erosion, desertification, and dust and fine dust. Due to the widespread and harmful effects of weakening natural ecosystems and destroying environmental elements on the present and future life of humans, environmental issues have been at the forefront of domestic and foreign policies of countries and international forums. According to studies, 48 countries will face water shortages by 2025. According to forecasts, the only factor that causes natural population growth, without considering the role of other influential factors, will cause all countries in the Middle East and North Africa to face a per capita shortage of fresh water within the next two decades. Water is considered a strategic resource and a geopolitical issue in West Asia. The Tigris and Euphrates are the most controversial watersheds in this region. The main tributaries of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers originate in Turkey. 12% of the Tigris basin is located in Turkey, 0.2% in Syria, 54% in Iraq, and 34% in Iran. 28% of the Euphrates basin is located in Turkey, 17% in Syria, and 40% in Iraq. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th century, three new countries, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, were created as riparian states of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the hydro political efforts of the riparian states to increasingly dominate the shared but limited water resources of this basin caused numerous political and security challenges and tensions in this important watershed. The large-scale irrigation projects initiated by the riparian states of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the 1960s were considered a threat to the national security of other riparian states, and they tried to stop these efforts through various means. For example, the tension between Iraq and Syria in 1975 over Syria's exploitation of the Al- Thawreh Dam and the reduction in the flow of the Euphrates River escalated to the point of full-scale war, with Iraq threatening Syria with bombing the Al-Thawreh Dam. This dispute led the two countries to deploy border forces on the borders of the two countries, which was eventually resolved through mediation by Saudi Arabia and the former Soviet Union. Countries affected by the Tigris and Euphrates have faced a shortage of water resources, especially freshwater, insufficient rainfall and its unbalanced distribution, successive droughts, a shortage of environmental resources, weakened ecosystems, and a destroyed environment due to Turkey's indiscriminate dam construction on the aforementioned rivers. Therefore, in recent years, the issue of water has transformed the foreign policy of countries affected by the Tigris and Euphrates.
Methodology
The research method in this study is analytical-descriptive. To collect data, library methods (text reading and receipts, statistics reading and using tables, images reading and using maps and documents) were used.
Results and Discussion:
In 1992, the Turkish government opened the Ataturk Dam on the Euphrates River, which has a capacity equivalent to 650 dams in Iran. It caused the formation of fine dust in western Iran and intensified desertification in Iraq. Now, the Turkish government has also built the Iliso Dam on the Tigris River, preventing 56 percent of the Tigris water resources from entering Iraq. The construction of the Iliso Dam by Turkey, which has a capacity equivalent to three times the largest dam in Iran, Karkheh, will prevent the entry of all 41 percent of the water volume that used to flow from Turkish territory into the Tigris, and will intensify processes such as desertification and drought in Iraq. Thus, Southwest Asia, and especially western Iran, is in a situation where, with the Iliso Dam on the Tigris, incidents such as fine dust will occur, and the Iranian environment will witness increasing unrest. What is more worrying is that by preventing the Turkish government from the entry of Euphrates water into Iraq and ultimately the country's wetlands, an environmental disaster will form and continue in southwestern Iran, and the wetland, which was once a place for fishing and a natural air cooling system, will gradually lose its functions. The possible consequences of increasing environmental problems will lead to increased migration, increased unemployment, destruction of agricultural and livestock environments, reduced development, reduced health, and all kinds of problems in various fields, which will increase the costs of the Iranian government and widespread protests by citizens of these regions against the policies of the central government and its possible consequences, which in turn will affect the dimensions of the environmental security of the Islamic Republic.
Conclusion:
The policy of increasing regional power has led Ankara to seek water resources with the aim of implementing a strategy of hydro-hegemony so that it can impose its desired changes on the behavior of its neighbors and ultimately regional issues in politically sensitive times. Hydro-hegemony is part of the puzzle of Turkey's regional hegemony, along with plans such as becoming an energy transmission hub, a technical production hub, and a major regional exchange center, so that Ankara can rely on it to change the future patterns of regional macro-issues against the main regional power, Iran. Therefore, Turkey, by controlling transboundary waters at the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates, along with electricity generation and agricultural development, is pursuing geopolitical goals based on hydro-hegemony against the countries of Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Given the scarcity of fossil fuels, especially oil and gas, Turkey has faced many social and economic problems due to its maximum use of the Tigris and Euphrates water resources and its hydro political position over the past decades by limiting the amount of water entering these rivers into Iraq and Syria, and has had serious political, security and environmental impacts on the regional relations of the states in the basins of the aforementioned rivers. Thus, Turkey's hydro hegemonic strategy is to build a geopolitical power in West Asia for countries such as Syria, Iraq and Iran in order to involve these countries in the
issue of security and water shortages and for Turkey to become the leading geopolitical power in the region.
کلیدواژهها English
منابع
