Patterns of Hydropolitics Knowledge Production in Turkey’s GAP Project: A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis (2004–2024)

Document Type : مقالات علمی -پژوهشی

Authors

mohamad amereh ¹

ata abdi ²

Mohammadreza Shahbazbegian ³

¹ PhD student in Political Geography, Kharazmi University, Tehran

² Department of Political Geography, Faculty of Geographical Sciences, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

³ University of Water Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Environment, Tarbiat Modares University

https://doi.org/10.22067/pg.2026.96225.1407

Abstract

The Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) is one of the most extensive water engineering interventions in the Tigris-Euphrates basin and has been the subject of extensive and sometimes contentious knowledge production over the past two decades. The present study employs a systematic review and qualitative meta-integration approach, aiming to analyze the discursive and visual patterns produced by the scientific literature between 2004 and 2024 regarding the hydropolitical consequences of GAP. Following the PRISMA guidelines, 60 articles were systematically screened and included in the analysis, and the data were coded and integrated using thematic analysis. The main research question is: “How has the scientific literature represented the GAP project from a hydropolitical perspective?” The findings indicate that the existing literature predominantly presents a critical and problem-oriented image of GAP, with approximately 75% of the articles framing the project’s outcomes as threatening to water security, tension-inducing, and inequitable. Moreover, 21.7% of the studies focused on proposing management, diplomatic, or participatory solutions, while only 3.3% of the research presented a positive assessment, primarily observed in works by Turkish scholars. The meta-integration of results reveals three dominant discourses in the literature: the security–political discourse (Turkey’s hegemony and pressure on downstream countries), the environmental discourse (exacerbation of ecological tensions), and the development-oriented nationalist discourse (limited to Turkish authors). This analysis demonstrates that knowledge production about GAP not only reflects the project’s tangible outcomes but also mirrors the geopolitical, national, and epistemic positions of the authors.

Keywords

GAP Project

Tigris and Euphrates

Hydropolitics

PRISMA

Meta-Synthesis

Subjects

• Political Geography

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