Vulnerabilities

Along the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, storm surge and saltwater intrusion into aquifers threaten parts of the Croatian, Albanian, and Turkish coasts.Problems of saline intrusion would be further exacerbated by reductions in runoff and by increased withdrawals in response to higher demand (1). Saltwater intrusion is one of the key potential effects of sea level rise on Istanbul. Two big lagoons (Büyücekmece and Kücükcekmece) and the Halic estuary that separates old town from the business district in Istanbul are vulnerable to salinisation. So is the freshwater supply of Istanbul: Terkos Lake, located near the coastline of the Black Sea (2).

Salt water intrusion due to sea-level rise is mostly a very slow process that may take several centuries to reach equilibrium (3). Even small rates of groundwater pumping from coastal aquifers are expected to lead to stronger salinization of the groundwater than sea-level rise during the 21st century (4).

References

The references below are cited in full in a separate map 'References'. Please click here if you are looking for the full references for Turkey.

1. http://www.worldbank.org
2. Karaca and Nicholls (2008)
3. Webb and Howard (2011), in: IPCC (2014)
4. Ferguson and Gleeson (2012); Loaiciga et al. (2012), both in: IPCC (2014)