Location and Name

Derinöz Dam is an irrigation dam built on the Derinöz Stream at the western foot of Akdağ. Because it stands in the border zone between Amasya's Suluova district and the Ladik district of Samsun, it appears in the records of both provinces. The Suluova District Governorate's district profile places the dam in the eastern part of the district and describes it as an artificial lake built on the Derinöz Stream for irrigation; a local travel guide likewise puts it within the boundaries of Seyfe village and reckons its distance from Amasya city centre at about 43 kilometres. The regional records of the State Hydraulic Works (DSİ), by contrast, list the dam under Samsun, and the official flood plan prepared for the Yeşilırmak basin gives its location as "Samsun-Ladik". A development agency report on Ladik district offers the most balanced description, stating that the dam was built "on the border between the district and Amasya province". With the embankment and the lake lying so close to the provincial line, which province a source takes as its reference usually depends on which plain it sees the dam as serving.

The structure is operated by DSİ. The reservoir and the stream below it share the same name: official records call the lake "Derinöz Baraj Gölü" (Derinöz Reservoir) and the water flowing on below the dam "Derinöz Deresi" or "Derinöz Çayı". No reliable explanation of the origin of the name has been found; Derinöz is not mentioned either in the sections where Hüsameddin describes the waterways of Amasya and its surroundings in detail. An important point for travellers is that the dam is not easily reached by public transport. The shore is visited by private car.

The Derinöz Stream and the Tersakan Basin

The Derinöz Stream belongs to the Tersakan system, one of the northern branches of the Yeşilırmak basin. The Yeşilırmak Basin Flood Management Plan gives the stream's catchment area at the section at Çatak village as 120 square kilometres and the elevation of that section as 650 metres. The upper part of the catchment is formed by the western slopes of Akdağ, which rise to 1,900-2,000 metres. The stream joins the Tersakan downstream of Çatak village. The same plan also describes the Tersakan: it rises at 1,925 metres on the slopes of Akdağ, takes in the overflow of Lake Ladik, passes through Havza district and, after a course of about 100 kilometres, joins the Yeşilırmak within Amasya province. Its main tributaries are the Şeyhsuyu, Gümüşsuyu, Derinöz and Salhan streams; the Gümüşhacıköy, Merzifon and Suluova plains lie along these tributaries, and the plan records the dam on the Derinöz separately.

Some official profiles of Suluova give the source of the Tersakan in one place as Lake Ladik and in another as the Derinöz Stream. The description in the basin plan explains why both statements appear side by side: the Tersakan gathers both the water leaving Lake Ladik and tributaries such as the Derinöz coming down from Akdağ. The river enters Suluova from the direction of Eski Çeltek, curves across the plain and reaches the Yeşilırmak at Amasya. For this reason Derinöz cannot be seen merely as a local structure: the snow-fed slopes of Akdağ, the stream, the dam, Lake Ladik and the canals on the plain are parts of a single interconnected water system.

The Tersakan itself is described at length in the work of the Amasya historian Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar. According to Hüsameddin, the river was called "Tersakan" ("flowing the wrong way") because it runs from north to south; the fact that the Arabic source Ahbâru'l-İbâd records it as "en-Nehrü'l-Maklûb", the "inverted river", shows that the name had been known among the Turks since the conquest. He also notes that in older documents the river appears under the names "Astifonos" and "İstiyotos". Hüsameddin traces its course from the north of Ladik district, past the east of Havza and through the middle of Suluova into Amasya's northern gorge, where it meets the Yeşilırmak above Bahçeleriçi. He writes that its flow is constant, diminishing in summer and swelling in spring, and that because it overflows and causes damage when in spate the people also call it "Deliçay", the "mad stream". Many mills, vineyards and gardens along its two banks drew on its water; at the end of Suluova, where the Amasya and Merzifon roads part, stood the single-arched Çeltek Bridge. In this way his description recorded, as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, the regime of a river swinging between spring floods and summer drought that dams would try to regulate towards the end of the century.

Hüsameddin also describes Lake Ladik, which he regards as the true source of the Tersakan. Lying some ten kilometres east of the town of Ladik, the lake was known for its fish and reed beds, and was six kilometres long, three kilometres wide and about six metres deep; six streams rising from the Seki, Kızoğlu, Polad and Çakır Gümüş summer pastures flowed into it, and the water leaving it took the name Tersakan. The author adds that in his day draining the lake was under consideration. The basin plan states that in the following century the lake, instead of being drained, was regulated by DSİ and turned into a reservoir for irrigation. The Ladik plain thus came to draw its water from two sources: Lake Ladik and the Derinöz water collected from the western slopes of Akdağ.

Akdağ and the Climate of the Basin

Akdağ, which feeds Derinöz, is the highest mountain in Suluova district and, according to district records, reaches 2,064 metres. Describing the Akdağ subdistrict (nahiye), which covered the eastern parts of Amasya in the Ottoman administrative order, Hüsameddin writes that the mountain had long been known by this name, that its summer pastures were ample, its winter quarters prized, its water abundant and its air healthy, so that most of the sheep of the Amasya district grazed there in summer; the butter, cheese and yoghurt of these pastures were renowned in the region. The western slopes of this mountain, remembered as a well-watered upland, today form the catchment of Derinöz Dam. Hüsameddin names Taşan Dağı north of Merzifon as the largest mountain of the sanjak after Akdağ; he thus counts Akdağ as the region's largest massif, and the dependence of the basin's water on these slopes is consistent with this.

Lying between the continental climate of Central Anatolia and the Black Sea climate, the district has a transitional climate. Precipitation falls mostly in spring and winter; snow is rare and falls mainly in the Akdağ area. This may explain why the level of the reservoir depends so heavily on winter snow cover and spring rain. The mean annual temperature is 12 degrees. The warmest month is July (average 21.5 degrees) and the coldest January (2.2 degrees). The first frosts come in November and the last in April.

On the slopes of Akdağ the vegetation is forest up to the higher reaches, made up of pine, hornbeam and oak. Among the forest species of the district, black pine accounts for 50 per cent, Scots pine for 40 per cent, and beech and oak for 5 per cent each. On the plain, the vegetation consists of orchards, poplars and willows. The forest on the slopes holds the soil and limits the amount of sediment carried into the lake, so protecting the cover of the catchment bears directly on the life of the dam. The mountain's water is valued on the Ladik side as well: spring water rising at the district's Soğanlı plateau is today bottled under the name "Ladik Akdağ".

The Plain's Need for Water

To understand why the dam was built, one has to look at the history of the plain on which it stands. According to Hüsameddin, the Hakala subdistrict, which included present-day Suluova, was formerly known as "Arguma-Suluova", and the plain bore the name of Arguma Castle at the end of Amasya's northern gorge. As the Suluova District Governorate relates, before 1950 a large part of the plain was covered with marshes or pools of standing water. Because drainage was poor, the farmland suffered from a high water table and salinity, and since these conditions spread malaria, the plain became uninhabitable in summer. Some families spent the summers in the upland pastures at the foot of Akdağ, and in dry years there was famine.

Agricultural development began in 1950 with the tractors and machinery distributed to farmers. In the same years the marshes were drained, and poorly drained land was reclaimed to open new farmland. Settled, systematic farming on the plain became possible with the Amasya Sugar Factory, which opened in 1954. As the factory spread sugar beet cultivation, the need for water grew as well. The plain was a place where both excess water and, in summer, lack of water were problems. Drainage channels eased the first, but solving the second required dams to store the rainfall. According to DSİ's regional records, the gravity and pumped irrigation scheme in Suluova came into operation in 1986.

The needs of the Ladik plain were similar. According to the district report of 2018, Ladik has 19,080 hectares of farmland, where, alongside wheat, barley and oats, fodder crops such as silage maize and sainfoin and industrial crops such as maize, sugar beet and sunflower are grown. The presence in this list of crops such as sugar beet and maize, which need summer irrigation, explains the economic weight of the dam on the Ladik side.

In Amasya, DSİ's irrigation structures followed one another in response to this need. The list compiled by the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism records that construction of Yedikır Dam began in 1979 and that it came into operation in 1986, that Sarayözü Dam in Gümüşhacıköy entered service in 1991 and Gediksaray Dam in 1994. Uluköy Dam in Taşova opened in 1984. Derinöz Dam comes towards the end of this series and is among the structures with the largest irrigation area on the list.

Construction and Technical Features

The sources do not agree on the dates of the dam's construction. DSİ's 7th Regional Directorate list of dams in operation shows that construction began in 1990 and that the dam came into operation in 2002; English-language encyclopaedic records also give 1990-2002. Turkish encyclopaedic records, however, give the construction period as 1991-2000 and name 2000 as the year of opening. A local travel guide writes that construction was completed between 1991 and 2002. In the list sourced from the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism the dam appears with the words "completed in 2003"; the Ladik district report likewise records that the dam was opened in 2003 to irrigate the Ladik Plain, and a local news report from spring 2026 also takes 2003 as its reference. The discrepancy may arise from separate stages, such as the end of construction, first impoundment, formal commissioning and the opening ceremony, falling in different years; no document has been found that directly links DSİ's 2002 entry with the 2003 opening.

Completing the embankment did not mean that water reached the fields. DSİ's list of irrigation schemes in operation contains two separate entries under Samsun: the "Derinöz Irrigation Scheme" came into operation in 2008 and the "Lâdik Derinöz Dam Irrigation" in 2014. In June 2013 a Cihan News Agency report on the Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs' investments in Samsun stated that the ministry had completed the Ladik Derinöz and Vezirköprü dams, "under construction for many years", that a total of 87,000 decares of farmland had so far been opened to irrigation through these two projects, and that construction of the Ladik Derinöz irrigation project was still under way. Read together, these records indicate that the dam began impounding water in the early 2000s, but that the irrigation network, especially its Ladik branch, was completed piece by piece up to 2014. Because the 87,000-decare figure in the report is the total for both dams, it does not allow Derinöz's share to be calculated separately from this source.

Derinöz is a rock-fill dam. Its embankment consists of about 3.25 million cubic metres of material, and its height above the riverbed is 74 metres. At normal water level the reservoir volume is 18.9 cubic hectometres. The reservoir area is given in some records as 0.88 square kilometres and in the basin plan table, based on DSİ's 2014 compilation Türkiye'deki Barajlar (Dams in Turkey), as 0.80 square kilometres; the height and volume are the same in both sources. These figures make Derinöz a medium-sized structure among the irrigation dams around Amasya. According to the same table, Yedikır Dam is 25.2 metres high with a volume of 60.3 cubic hectometres; Sarayözü in Gümüşhacıköy is 44.5 metres high with 13.1 cubic hectometres; Uluköy is 23 metres high (28 metres in some records) with 3.65 cubic hectometres. Derinöz is the tallest of these structures: built in a narrow stream valley, it gathers its water in depth rather than spreading it over a wide surface. The Suluova District Governorate's district profile, meanwhile, gives the dam a "water retention capacity of 3.5 million cubic metres". This figure does not match DSİ's reservoir volume of 18.9 cubic hectometres and has probably been confused with the volume of the embankment fill.

Irrigated Area

Several figures circulate for the irrigated area. The encyclopaedic infobox based on DSİ data gives 4,490 hectares. The Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism list carried by Amasya Municipality and the District Governorate states that 6,500 hectares "will be irrigated" from the dam. The future tense suggests that this figure represents the target area at the project stage. The 2018 Ladik district report, for its part, writes that 6,000 hectares are irrigated in the Ladik area alone. This figure suggests that most of the 6,500-hectare target lies on the Ladik side, while the 4,490-hectare value may belong to a stage before the Ladik branch of the network was completed. The discrepancy between the sources has not been conclusively resolved, and the area actually irrigated also varies from year to year with the water in the lake. In any case, the dam carries its water to farmland in Samsun's Ladik district as well as to the Suluova plain.

Irrigation Role and Water Regime

The main task of Derinöz Dam is to hold the water coming down from Akdağ in winter and early spring and distribute it in summer to the fields of the Suluova and Ladik plains. The District Governorate writes that the dam is used to irrigate the Ladik Plain and part of the Suluova Plain. A news report from spring 2026 says that, besides irrigation, the dam is also used for drinking water supply; since DSİ and other official records give irrigation as its only purpose, this information rests on a single news report. The dam table in the basin plan also gives the purpose of Derinöz as irrigation.

The fragility of this system has become clearly visible in recent years. According to reports based on ministry data, the dam's fill rate fell to 2 per cent in 2020 and to 7.6 per cent in 2021. Footage released by İHA in November 2020 showed that the water had receded by hundreds of metres and that an old bridge, once submerged, had emerged in the reservoir bed. The report noted that because the summer had been dry, fill rates in Amasya's dams had dropped, and that the Turkish State Meteorological Service's assessment for September 2020 counted Tokat, Amasya, Sinop and Çorum among the provinces most affected by drought. No published information has been found on the date of the bridge or on which settlements the old road connected.

The trend reversed in the winter of 2025-2026. The fill rate, which had fallen to 10 per cent at the end of the previous year, rose above 50 per cent by the end of April 2026 after snowfall and rain that fell almost every day throughout April. In the report this rate corresponds to about 9,450,000 cubic metres of water, and the total capacity of the structure is given as 18,900,000 cubic metres; this value matches DSİ's reservoir volume of 18.9 cubic hectometres exactly. The same report linked the rise from 10 to 50 per cent to the snowfall and the wet April that followed. That even at the Çatak section, before the stream joins the Tersakan, the catchment covers only 120 square kilometres explains how a single dry winter can quickly empty the lake and how a snowy winter can restore it within a few months.

Derinöz as a Recreation Area

Although Derinöz Dam was built for irrigation, the people of Amasya use it as a picnic and recreation spot. On the shore there is a recreation area with picnic tables and a fountain, and the lake is suitable for angling. Local travel guides describe it as a place often chosen by those who want to spend quiet time away from the crowds. The still surface of the water, deepening in the narrow valley, reflects the shadows of the surrounding hills, and the calm of the shore is its chief quality.

Yedikır Dam, in the same district, is a better-known and more developed neighbour. Around this lake, protected as the Yedikuğular Bird Sanctuary, 34 bird species have been recorded; it was declared a first-degree natural protected area in 1989, its surroundings have been landscaped as a visitor site, and the reservoir has been opened to amateur fishing. At Derinöz, no comparable protected status or substantial investment in facilities has been documented. The difference between the two lakes should therefore not be read as a ranking. Yedikır offers protection and observation, Derinöz a simple rest by the water.

When the fill rate drops, the dam also loses its role as a recreation spot. The November 2020 report says that a great silence reigned at the dam where people used to go especially for picnics. For those planning to visit Derinöz, the current state of the lake is therefore the first factor that determines the quality of the visit. As the fill rate changes from year to year and season to season, it is sensible to check DSİ data or local news before going.

Angling

Local guides state that angling is possible at the dam. No official inventory of fish species has been found. In anglers' posts, trout is sometimes mentioned among the fish in the dam; it has not been confirmed that this provides a widespread and lasting opportunity for fishing. The same posts also say that when the water level falls in summer the fish retreat to deeper water and catching them becomes harder. At another irrigation dam in Amasya, Uluköy, reports have been published of species such as carp, chub, bass, roach, catfish and rudd dying from lack of oxygen during heat and drought. This example shows how closely fish life in irrigation reservoirs depends on the water level.

Camping and Picnics

For those thinking of camping, spring and late summer are the most suitable periods, being neither too hot nor too cool. Casting a line early in the morning and waiting on the shore, then spreading a picnic in the shade of the surrounding trees at midday, are among the ways of escaping the oppressive summer heat of the plain. Observing local fishing rules, taking away any litter and taking precautions with fire are preconditions for protecting the shore.

Among Amasya's Dams and Ponds

The place of Derinöz in Amasya becomes clear when it is compared with the other structures in provincial records. According to the list of the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, Sarayözü Dam in Gümüşhacıköy came into operation in 1991 and irrigates 3,500 hectares. Gediksaray Dam (Göynücek, 1994) has an irrigated area of 1,200 hectares, Uluköy Dam (Taşova, 1984) 1,000 hectares and Yedikır Dam 1,400 hectares. Destek Dam in Taşova opened in 2001 and irrigates 130 hectares. In this ranking, whether 4,490 or 6,500 hectares is taken, Derinöz has the largest irrigated area on the provincial list. In DSİ's own regional list, however, the dam is counted among the structures of Samsun rather than Amasya; the provincial list includes it under Amasya because the lake and the embankment lie close to the Suluova border and part of the water flows to Suluova.

The same list also includes a small structure within Suluova: Bayırlı Pond in Bayırlı village came into operation in 1994 and irrigates 85 hectares. Local travel guides mention this pond as a good place for picnics and fishing. Unlike these ponds, Derinöz is a major structure concerning much of the district and the neighbouring Ladik plain.

Other Stops Nearby

Visitors to Derinöz can combine the trip with other places in the district. The Kasım Bey Madrasa and Bath stand in the village of Yolpınar (formerly Hakala). The District Governorate writes that the madrasa was among the best known of Amasya's madrasas and was counted among the first forty; south-west of the same village is the zaviye (dervish hospice) built in 1348 by Seyyid Necmettin Yahya Rifai. Until the end of the seventeenth century the Hakala subdistrict was a centre that trained scholars and madrasa students. Hüsameddin, too, describes Hakala as a subdistrict centre built on level ground that once had the look of a fairly prosperous town, and notes that the tomb of Seyyid Yahya-yı Rufai was a very famous place of pilgrimage.

The Gani Baba Tomb lies below Saygılı village on the bank of the Tersakan. It is known as the tomb of Gazi Derviş Şeyh Abdülgani el-Halvetî, who is said to have come from Khorasan to Anatolia to spread Islam, and its surroundings have been laid out as a picnic area. Hüsameddin records the tomb within the Hakala subdistrict, on the bank of the Tersakan, as a place of pilgrimage where the sick sought refuge; he writes that on spring days its surroundings turned into a fairground, that sacrifices were offered every day, and that the well-known Gani family of Amasya descended from this holy man. Osman Fevzi Olcay's list of the saints of Amasya also records that Mevlâna Abdülgani lies north of Saygılı village, on the bank of the Tersakan. The Kapaklı Forest Nursery and Recreation Facilities cover 42 hectares at about 1,000 metres on the slopes of Akdağ. Oak and black pine forest predominates, saplings are raised, and the site is known for its cold water and clean air. Its monumental sequoia tree is also a stop for visitors. The Yedikuğular Bird Sanctuary covers 817 hectares around Yedikır Dam; it was declared a wildlife protection area and protected site in 1989 and ranks 57th on Turkey's list of Important Bird Areas. Combining a trip to Derinöz with this bird area is a practical way of seeing Suluova's water and natural assets as a whole.

Notes for Visitors

The dam is hard to reach by public transport, so a private vehicle is needed. As the current fill rate directly affects the enjoyment of a visit, it is worth finding out the state of the lake in advance, especially in late summer. Leaving no litter, lighting fires only where permitted and with proper precautions, and following local rules when angling all help to protect the shore.

Chronology

1950: Draining of the marshes and mechanisation of agriculture begin on the Suluova plain.

1954: The Amasya Sugar Factory opens.

1986: Yedikır Dam and the Suluova gravity and pumped irrigation scheme come into operation.

1990: According to DSİ records, construction of Derinöz Dam begins (1991 in some sources).

2002: According to DSİ records, the dam comes into operation (2000 or 2003 in some sources).

2003: According to Ladik and Amasya sources, the dam is opened to irrigate the Ladik Plain.

2008: The Derinöz Irrigation Scheme comes into operation.

June 2013: The ministry announces that Ladik Derinöz Dam has been completed and that construction of the irrigation project continues.

2014: The Lâdik Derinöz Dam Irrigation comes into operation.

2020: The dam's fill rate drops to 2 per cent; in November an old submerged bridge becomes visible in the reservoir bed.

2021: The fill rate stands at 7.6 per cent.

April 2026: After snow and rain, the fill rate exceeds 50 per cent.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Official sources

  • Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs, General Directorate of Water Management, Yeşilırmak Havzası Taşkın Yönetim Planı, Yönetici Özeti (Yeşilırmak Basin Flood Management Plan, Executive Summary), Ankara, December 2015.
  • Republic of Türkiye Amasya Municipality City Guide, "Barajlar ve Göletler" (source: Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism).

Other sources

  • DSİ 7th Regional Directorate, "İşletmedeki Baraj ve Göletler" and "İşletmedeki Sulama Tesisleri" (lists of dams, ponds and irrigation schemes in operation).
  • Central Black Sea Development Agency (OKA), Ladik İlçe Raporu (Ladik District Report, prepared by Ahmet Arif Sarıoğlu), February 2018.
  • Cihan News Agency, "Samsun'a Son 10,5 Yılda 873 Milyon Liralık Yatırım", 21 June 2013 (mynet.com). mynet.com
  • Republic of Türkiye Suluova District Governorate, "İlçemiz ve Tarihi" and "Derinöz Barajı" pages.
  • Turkish Wikipedia, "Derinöz Barajı" (DSİ data); English Wikipedia, "Derinöz Dam".
  • Objektif Amasya, "Derinöz'de Su Seviyesi Yükseldi: Yüzde 2'den Yüzde 50'ye Yükseldi", 30 April 2026.
  • İHA, "Derinöz Barajı'nda su altındaki eski köprü meydana çıktı", 6 November 2020.
  • Derinöz Dam travel guide (local travel guide page).

Online sources