Background: Many countries are experiencing significant water scarcity and related problems due to limited availability, uneven distribution of water resources and high demand. Therefore, increasing water use efficiency and better management of existing resources have become substantially important. The agricultural sector is responsible for around 80% of global freshwater withdrawal. Wheat is one of the most important crops having large volumes of virtual water (VW) which is defined as the hidden water embedded in the products. Methods: Water footprint (WF) is an indicator showing the total volume of freshwater consumption of a product or process. Blue water concept is defined as the amount of exploited surface and groundwater resources. Green water represents the total volume of rainwater allocated by the product. WF methodology brings a new approach to inter-regional water use and management by quantifying the amount of direct and indirect water use and tracing the hidden links between production, consumption and trade. The main objective of this study is to analyze Turkey’s national blue and green WF of wheat production, consumption and virtual water trade between 2008 and 2019. Detailed province-based quantification of wheat’s water exploitation is provided using spatial interpolation method. Results: Total consumptive WF of wheat production and consumption of Turkey is calculated as 39.3 and 48.1 Gm³/year, respectively. The average blue and green VW contents of wheat production through Turkey are assessed to be 1161 and 748 m³/ton, respectively. The water footprint parameters of each province are calculated and discussed using climatic and agricultural data. VW transfer of Turkey’s international wheat trade is also analyzed. Total national water saving is calculated as 7.8 Gm³/year which is mostly imported from Russia. Global VW deficit due to international wheat trade is calculated to be 1.76 Gm³/year. Conclusion: Despite its high contribution to global wheat production, increasing population and strong wheat-based diet, quantitative, comparative and up-to-date analyses of the blue and green WF and the VW transfer of wheat production in Turkey are not available. This study contributes to the national and international water management and planning studies to increase the water allocation efficiency of agricultural products.

Hydrokinetic turbines have gained importance due to rapid developments in the field of renewable energy. There are several applications for large-scale hydrokinetic turbines in marine environments; however, the number of small-scale designs for rivers and channels is limited. In the present study, a fixed-speed, stall-regulated riverine hydrokinetic turbine rotor has been designed through an optimization process and simulated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis methods. The blades and rotor were optimized by genetic algorithm methods. Simulations were conducted using commercially available software with a shear-stress transport (SST) $k\text{-}\omega$ turbulence closure model. In the simulations, the performance in terms of power, torque, and thrust were found to be in good agreement with the optimization parameters. The optimized hydrokinetic turbine is named TIGRIS-27 H, and is a three-bladed horizontal-axis energy converter rotating at 45 revolutions per minute (rpm) and generating up to 27 kW power at the rated velocity of $2.7{\mathrm{ms}}^{-1}$ with an average power coefficient of 0.43.