Landscape planning and management strategies for the Zir Valley, near Ankara, Turkey

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This paper proposes a landscape planning and management method for river basins within the context of the European Landscape Convention (ELC) and European Water Framework Directive (WFD). This method has been applied to the Zir Valley in Ankara, Turkey. Landscape planning is identified by the ELC (European Treaty Series No. 176, 2000) as an important, forward-looking action to enhance, restore or create landscapes. The ELC also states that landscape management should promote sustainable development to ensure the non-degradation of landscapes and to help harmonize inevitable changes. The WFD (Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, 2000) is a set of guidelines for managing large bodies of water. Its principle directive is to identify water bodies and the adjacent land areas that influence, and are influenced by, those water bodies. These are called River Basin Districts, and act as essential physiographic landscape units. While several regulations related to environmental planning, and used on a national as well as European basis, tend to utilize the same tools in practice, there are dissimilarities in how they are specifically applied and little effort is being made to promote a cooperative approach. In this paper, a National Approach for River Basin Management is proposed. This approach, which includes a landscape planning and management method based on landscape form and function, was developed to address the common purposes of the ELC and WFD.