Remote sensing data provides great opportunities in various steps of watershed management like characterization of watersheds that bear dynamic structure with large land, monitoring the physical variations within the basin, and conducting various scenario analyses to detect the response of the basin. The high resolution capacity of today’s satellite images enables the production of land use/cover data of a basin in shorter period of time. In this study, it is aimed to demonstrate various aspects of remote sensing technology to be used in watershed management studies. For that purpose, MODIS, Landsat and Sentinel satellite data with different spatial resolutions were used to monitor the surface water bodies in Konya Closed Basin (KCB) of Turkey. In addition, high spatial Worldview-3 satellite data were used to extract detailed information about Akgol Wetland located in KCB. A methodology was developed on the utilization of remote sensing technology consisting of 3 main groups; field surveys, satellite images and ancillary data. In the study, 5 different spectral indices were applied to Sentinel 2 data to determine the areas of surface water bodies. Moreover, Support Vector Machine (SVM) method was applied to Worldview-3 satellite image to classify Akgol Wetland and its vicinity. The importance of establishing watershed information system together with a database reflecting the characteristics of watersheds was underlined. Various examples were given from KCB that is known as the largest closed basin of the country with a surface area of 5.426.480 ha. The basin owns 17 water bodies out of which 2 of them are RAMSAR sites. Within the scope of the study, information obtained from optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite images in the basin were discussed. More accurate results were achieved by Sentinel 2 than MODIS and Landsat data. In addition, detailed information about the wetland were extracted by means of Worldview-3 data and water bodies were monitored in all weather conditions via Sentinel 1 SAR data.

Purpose: Rough estimations of water gain through greywater reuse and rainwater harvesting together with energy recovery from wastewater generated from a fictitious eco-city of population 100,000 located in Istanbul, Turkey form the main framework of the study. As such, the highly important concept of water–energy nexus will be emphasised and domestic wastewater will be partly considered for water recycling and the rest for energy recovery. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach: Distribution of daily domestic water consumption among different household uses and the population in the residential area are the two governing parameters in the practical calculation of daily wastewater generated. Therefore, domestic wastewater will be initially estimated based on population, and in turn, the amount of greywater will be found from the per cent distribution of water use. After segregation of greywater, the energy equivalency of the rest of the wastewater, known as blackwater, will further be calculated. Besides, the long-term average precipitation data of the geographical location (Istanbul) are used in determining safe and sound rainwater harvesting. Harvesting is considered to be only from the roofs of the houses; therefore, surface area of the roofs is directly taken from an actual residential site in Turkey, housing the same population which is constructed in four stages. Similarly, the fictitious eco-city in Istanbul is assumed to be constructed in a stage-wise manner to resemble real conditions. Findings: The water consumption of the fictitious eco-city ABC is considered as 15,000 m³/day by taking the unit water consumption 150 L/capita.day. Therefore, total water savings through on-site reuse and reuse as irrigation water (9,963 m³/day) will reduce water consumption by 64 per cent. Minimum 40 per cent water saving is shown to be possible by means of only greywater recycling and rainwater harvesting with a long-term average annual precipitation of 800 mm. The energy recovery from the rest of the wastewater after segregation of greywater is calculated as 15 MWh/day as electricity and heat that roughly correspond to electricity demand of 1,300 households each bearing four people. Research limitations/implications: A fictitious eco-city rather than an actual one located in Istanbul is considered as the pilot area in the study. So far, an eco-city with population around 100,000 in Turkey does not exist. An important implication relates to rainwater harvesting. The amount of safe water to be gained through precipitation is subject to fluctuations within years and, thus, the amount of collected rainwater will highly depend on the geographical location of such an eco-city. Practical implications: The study covering rough calculations on water savings and energy recovery from domestic wastewater will act as a guide to practitioners working on efficient water management in the eco-cities, especially in those that are planned in a developing country. Originality/value: Practising water–energy nexus in an eco-city of population 100,000 regarding water savings and energy recovery from wastewater forms the originality of the study. Sustainable water use and energy recovery from wastewater are among the emerging topics in environmental science and technology. However, safe and sound applications are lacking especially in the developing countries. Guiding these countries with practical calculations on both water gain and energy recovery from wastewater (blackwater) is the value of the work done. Moreover, Istanbul is deliberately selected as a case study area for various reasons: its annual rainfall represents the worlds’ average, it is one of the most crowded megacities of the world that supply water demand from the surface water reservoirs and the megacity has not yet significantly increased wastewater reuse and recycling practices.