Water security challenges of Ankara City in Turkey: Lessons from climate change impact and the COVID-19 pandemic

Climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic posed significant challenges for Ankara city in Turkey. The city authorities have taken a number of strategic and operational measures to improve water security. This paper explores the linkages of regular forces such as climate change and disasters, as well as disruptive forces like pandemics, sudden shocks, and actions needed to overcome the resulting challenges. Based on 13 key informant interviews with a semi-structured questionnaire and literature review, the existing water security situation is explored in relation to climate change and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ankara is still behind in terms of climate-related adaptation practices and management. Financial resources are inadequate, so policy measures like neighborhood-level responsibility-sharing frameworks, resilience integration into existing policies and involving local people in policymaking, and developing capacity building for local government can help to ensure Ankara's water security. © 2023 Policy Studies Organization.

Performance evaluation and volatility of Turkey REITs during COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose: This study aims to examine the performance and volatility of Turkey Real Estate Investment Trusts (Turkish REITs) as the world is adjusting to the new normal situation in every aspect of REITs' business activities. Design/methodology/approach: The prices of REITs were acquired from 26 Turkish REITs in this study, but owing to autocorrelation difficulties, 14 Turkish REITs were employed in the analysis. The ten-year long-term bond of the Turkish Government was also utilized and the period of data obtained was based on availability. The performance of Turkish REITs was evaluated using Sharpe's ratio and Treynor's ratio, and the volatility was assessed using MGARCH-BEKK. Findings: The authors found out that Turkish REITs are constantly underperforming and the REITs' returns remain highly volatile and persistent. In addition, findings showed evidence of volatility clustering and the asymmetric impact of shocks. This study further revealed the uniqueness of each of the Turkish REITs due to the lack of evidence of multicollinearity. Research limitations/implications: However, the limitation of this study is the constraint in obtaining more macro-economic variables of more than ten-years of Turkey's Government bond and the study focused mainly on Turkish REITs. Practical implications: The result suggests that since Turkish REITs are not mandatory to payout 90% of taxable earnings as dividends, high performance and an appropriate risk management approach are expected. The need for timely revealing performance of T-REITs and associated uncertainty may trigger better performance as discussed in the relationship between disclosure and performance which is recently emphasized in a recent study by Koelbl (2020). With current performance and associated uncertainty in Turkish REITs, the need to protect Turkish REITs investors is highly essential. The result further educates REIT investors that diversification benefits of REITs tend to reduce in extremely risky situations. Originality/value: This is the first study in the context of Turkish REITs that comprehensively integrated market capitalization of REITs and simultaneous evaluation of performance and the volatility of the Turkish REITs as the world adjusts to the new normal. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.