Overview
- Turkey’s disaster agency AFAD counts 684 sinkholes across the Konya Closed Basin, with clusters reported around districts such as Karapınar and extensions into Karaman and Aksaray.
- Konya Technical University reports more than 20 new large collapses in Karapınar over the past year, with craters over 100 feet wide and tens of meters deep.
- Researchers link the surge to over‑pumping for water‑hungry crops like sugar beet and corn, compounded by climate‑linked drought and soluble karst and gypsum bedrock.
- Studies document groundwater declines of tens of meters in recent decades, with some areas dropping 60 meters or more since the 1970s.
- New drone footage and satellite analyses spotlight the spread, and authorities are moving against illegal wells as farmers abandon high‑risk fields.