Fatih Sik was drinking tea with friends at home when he heard a rumbling sound outside that grew to a loud boom, like a volcano had erupted nearby. From the window, he saw water and mud shoot into the sky, as high as the tallest trees, less than 100 metres away.
The 47-year-old knew what it was, because it is common in Karapınar, Konya, a vast agricultural province known as Turkey’s breadbasket. A giant sinkhole had opened up on his land. Fifty metres wide and 40 metres deep, it had appeared almost a year to the day after a previous one had formed. It was August – the hottest month of the year.
Sik was born on the farm he now owns, which his father ran before him, yet he says scientists have told local people the area is no longer livable. One house nearby has collapsed into a sinkhole.
“Every night I pray before I go to bed and when I wake up I pray again,” said Sik. “I live in constant fear that a sinkhole will take my house.”
Konya, part of the once-fertile Central Anatolia region, gave life to ancient civilisations, including what is believed to be the world’s first agricultural society, at Çatalhöyük, in about 8,000BC. It is dotted with the remnants of water cults, Hittite sacred springs and Roman aqueducts, and once offered vital watering holes to traders on the Silk Road.
Now, though, the land is drying up. Turkey is on the brink of a major drought crisis, with almost 90% of the country at risk of becoming desert.
Sinkholes are appearing in farmland in the region at an increasing pace. Experts say there are now almost 700, causing uncertainty and devastation for the farmers who live and work there.
According to Fetullah Arik, a professor of geology at Konya Technical University who studies sinkholes, the problem stems from dwindling rainfall and reduced groundwater. Local farmers are digging more and deeper wells due to water scarcity, which further depletes groundwater reserves, exacerbating the problem.
Konya has always been geologically prone to sinkholes because much of the region lies on bases of limestone and other soluble rocks, but in recent decades intensive agriculture has led to heavy groundwater extraction for irrigation. As water tables drop, underground cavities lose the support that once held them up.
Pointing to a map of global sinkholes on his office wall, Arik says Konya has the highest density in the world. “Over the past two years, things have accelerated and the difference is hard to ignore,” he says.
What was once a slow-moving disaster driven by climate breakdown has accelerated dramatically. Last year saw record heat and low rainfall, and farmers and fishermen told the Guardian they have seen unprecedented drying. The region has lost 186 of its 240 lakes over the past 60 years, according to local reports.
Prolonged heatwaves and dry spells, once rare in Europe, now cost about €11bn a year. Central Anatolia faces the brunt in the Mediterranean, one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth. Yet Turkey will host the UN climate summit Cop31 this year, sharing duties with Australia, posing questions about its climate leadership.
The country’s climate policies are “highly insufficient” to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels, according to Climate Action Tracker.
Sik used to water his crops with additional groundwater once in spring and twice in summer, but now there is so little rain he waters five times, then 10.
“Ten years ago, we only had to go 30 metres down to find water. Now, it’s 90,” he says.
There are 100 sinkholes in his neighbourhood, by his estimates. Two swallowed a beetroot field he owned, costing him about £17,000 a year. He estimates he would need 6,000 trucks of sand to fill in his land so he could use it again, but this would cost almost £35,000.
Sik has not received any support and believes he is the last generation to farm the area. He sent his children away to study nursing and dentistry rather than teaching them farming.
Most of Konya’s farmers grow water-intensive crops, such as corn, wheat and sugarbeet. Some believe the solution to the region’s problems is to adapt farming practices, growing crops that need less water – or no water at all.
Mahmut Senyuz is the head of a farming collective who are the first to reintroduce hemp production in the region, which had been slowly phased out due to regulatory restrictions. While he used to water his corn nine or 10 times a season, he said with hemp it is down to three.
Meanwhile, Dr Ece Onur, lovingly referred to in Turkish media as the country’s “most colourful farmer” due to her tendency to wear striking dungarees, is reviving ancient dry-farming practices. Leaving behind a career lecturing military anthropology at Indiana University to return to her ancestral homelands in Burdur, she started a female-led cooperative and also trains growers from across the country.
Dry farming uses no irrigation, instead preparing the soil and encouraging plants to dig their roots deep to draw on natural water reserves. She grows roses and medicinal plants, and says these sorts of crops could be vital to Turkey’s future.
“Soil is a living organism,” she says. “The only way to solve this crisis is to stop trying to make nature do things our way. We have to imitate her ways.”
This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center
This article was amended on 28 February 2025 to correct the byline. The piece was written by Liz Cookman, not Emre Çaylak, who took the photographs.
