Istanbul’s water consumption hits peak in 2023

ISTANBUL

The year 2023 has gone down as the year with the highest water consumption in Istanbul’s history.

Istanbul Municipality subsidiary General Directorate of Istanbul Water and Sewerage Administration (İSKİ) provided a total of 1.117 billion cubic meters of water to the city in 2023, breaking water consumption records.

According to İSKİ data, 841,959,000 cubic meters of the water used in the city was supplied from regulators and 275,000,104 cubic meters were supplied from dams.

During the year, 440,000,532 cubic meters of water was transferred from the Anatolian side to the European side, where the total water consumption was 737,938,000 cubic meters.

The number of subscribers to İSKİ has also increased. While İSKİ served 6,819,930 people in 2022, this figure rose to 6,891,231 in 2023.

The share of the European side in total water use was 66.06 percent, while the share of its Anatolian counterpart was 33.94 percent.

While 1,103,672,069 cubic meters of water was used in 2022, 2023 was the year with most water consumed in the city’s history.

A total of 1,117,064,116 cubic meters of water was used during the year. Water consumption was the highest of all time on July 27, 2023, with 3,568,056 cubic meters. Meanwhile, with 2,524,736 cubic meters, the lowest water consumption of the year took place on April 23, 2023.

Over the summer, Istanbul faced a water crisis due to drought; water levels in three of the 10 dams that supply water to the city dropped dangerously, by nearly 3 percent. Some of the dams had completely dried up.