Two cruise ships bring 2,988 tourists to the popular destination Bodrum.
A new desalination project in the Aegean province of Muğla will produce 20 million cubic meters of water annually to serve as an alternative resource for the Mediterranean resort town of Bodrum.
The Ekinanbarı Desalination and Drinking Water Supply Project is implemented by the Muğla Metropolitan Municipality Water and Sewerage Administration General Directorate.
The project employs advanced treatment technologies to purify high-salinity water sources into high-quality drinking and utility-grade water.
The facility to be established will provide 20 million cubic meters of drinking and utility water, which strictly corresponds to the amount consumed by approximately 200,000 people over a single year.
Professor Erdem Görgün, an academic at the Istanbul Technical University Environmental Engineering Department and the coordinator of the project, told state-run Anadolu News Agency the investment is a highly strategic step to increase the climate resilience of Muğla and ensure supply security.
The water in Ekinanbarı is not direct seawater but a source that can be utilized at a lower cost with advanced treatment technologies due to its salinity and mineral content, Görgün said.
“This project to transform a salinized source into drinking and utility water in a controlled, reliable and sustainable way for all of Bodrum, 11 neighborhoods of the Milas district and the Güllük district will be an exemplary model for Türkiye, and even the largest project built so far,” he said.
Görgün pointed out the existing water resources in Bodrum remain insufficient as the population significantly rises during the summer months and extended holiday periods.
While the private sector in Türkiye has been establishing facilities to supply water from the sea for a long time, heavy industrial plants and Istanbul Airport are also preparing pioneering investments to use seawater as an alternative resource, he said.
