Regional Variations of Land-Use Development and Land-Use/Cover Change Dynamics: A Case Study of Turkey

Ustaoglu Ustaoglu,Aydınoglu Aydınoglu

doi:10.3390/rs11070885

Abstract

. Population growth, economic development and rural-urban migration have caused rapid expansion of urban areas and metropolitan regions in Turkey. The structure of urban administration and planning has faced different socio-economic and political challenges, which have hindered the structured and planned development of cities and regions, resulting in an irregular and uneven development of these regions. We conducted detailed comparative analysis on spatio-temporal changes of the identified seven land-use/cover classes across different regions in Turkey with the use of Corine Land Cover (CLC) data of circa 1990, 2000, 2006 and 2012, integrated with Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. Here we compared spatio-temporal changes of urban and non-urban land uses, which differ across regions and across different hierarchical levels of urban areas. Our findings have shown that peri-urban areas are growing more than rural areas, and even growing more than urban areas in some regions. A deeper look at regions located in different geographical zones pointed to substantial development disparities across western and eastern regions of Turkey. We also employed multiple regression models to explain any possible drivers of land-use change, regarding both urban and non-urban land uses. The results reveal that the three influencing factors-socio-economic characteristics, regional characteristics and location, and development constraints, facilitate land-use change. However, their impacts differ in different geographical locations, as well as with different hierarchical levels.

Highlights

Land-use/land cover (LULC) change has become a central component in the literature comprising the topics of global/regional change and sustainable development issues [1]
In Turkey, population and urban land use/cover have grown steadily during the last decades, with population growing less than residential land during the 1990–2000 period, and the reverse occurred in the post-2000s, indicating dispersal of residential land uses in the former case, and densification of residential uses in the latter
In the 1990–2000 period, urban growth was achieved through conversion of agricultural land and natural vegetation to urban uses

Summary

Introduction

Land-use/land cover (LULC) change has become a central component in the literature comprising the topics of global/regional change and sustainable development issues [1]. There is vast literature covering the issues of spatio-temporal dynamics and driving the forces of land-use change worldwide [2,3,4,5,6,7]. Anthropogenic factors comprising demographic, socio-economic and political processes (Figure 1) are the main forces leading to land-use change at the global scale [8,9,10]. Regional comparative studies covering land-use change and pattern, driving forces, and consequences of land-use change would contribute to international literature on spatio-temporal evolution of land uses [5].

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Conclusion