Effects of hydrological and climatic characteristics on the land use in Zonguldak residential area, northwest Turkey

Abstract

Climate and hydrology are factors that affect human activities and land use. The hydrological and climatic survey must be carried out to determine the interaction between water resources and residential areas.Climate and hydrological observations are important because they help satisfy important social, economic and environmental needs. Considering global warming, increasing water consumption and rapid population growth, drought increasingly makes itself felt around the world. In this study, hydrological and climatic researches connected with land use were investigated. The climate of Zonguldak was classified using the Thornthwaite, De Martonne and Erinc climate classification methods and determined its water balance in order to plan land use and agricultural activities to be conducted in this industrial city. It is possible for Zonguldak, which was established to have a humid and very humid climate on the basis of different methods and to have precipitation all the year round, to meet its water need for the vegetation cover through precipitations. The reserve of ground water in the study area that can be used safely is 78.97 ´ 106 m3/year. Thanks to hydrologic and climaticfeatures, the forest areas covered 49.7% of the residential area with 77 km² area. The dense residential and pasture areas have second rank after the forest areas with 31.6%. The total sum of the cleared forest and agricultural areas comprises 18.7% of the study area. Key words: Precipitation effectiveness index, climate, water balance, land use.