Turkey is proposing a major dam-building program, proposing at least 18 new dams along its borders. The government claims the multiyear, multimillion-dollar infrastructure initiative would ease tensions over water-sharing, prevent flooding, irrigate farmland and generate electricity.

On Feb. 6, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian Premier Naji al-Otari broke ground for the Dostluk Baraji, or Friendship Dam, on the Orontes River, which flows from Lebanon into Syria and Turkey. The dam, 580 meters long and 14.5 m high, is designed to create a reservoir large enough to store 115 million cu m of water. At an estimated cost of $28.5 million, the impoundment will irrigate 10,000 hectares of agricultural fields, prevent flooding and annually generate 16 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, which will be shared equally by Turkey and Syria, according to Turkish officials.