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Spatio-temporal Characteristics of Roadside Landscape Components Along the Coastal Zone Between Amasra and Kurucaşile Cities of Bartın Province, Turkey

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/fabos.657

Publication Date

2016

Abstract

Roads connect populations, societies, cultures and economies (Havlick, 2002; Delgado et al., 2007). They also serve astonishing landscapes for the travelers. Forested rural landscapes along the coastal zones display unique features which vary spatially and temporally (Marsh, 2010). Therefore, the coastal roadside landscape components involving particularly the sea, trees, shrubs, villages and agricultural areas supply recreation for the people who experience this trip. Roadside landscape and scenic quality not only satisfy visual perception of the travelers (Akbar et al. 2003) but also serve for the safe and comfortable travel (Mok et al., 2006; Öztürk and Gökyer, 2015).

Greenways are defined as the linkages of linear elements that are considered around the perspectives of ecological, recreational, cultural and aesthetic planning, design and management in order to ultimately lead towards sustainable land use (Ahern, 1995). Based on these perspectives and goal, the literatures (e.g. Ribeiro and Barão, 2006); that approach the roadside landscapes around the greenway concept have gained importance in relatively recent years. Hence, Fábos (1995) incorporated coastal areas into the frame of “ecologically significant corridors and natural systems” on behalf of sustainable biodiversity and wildlife mobility. Consequently, the comprehensive ecological analysis of the landscapes involving the coastal areas support the sustainable greenway and land use planning objectives (Hawkins and Selman, 2002; Ryan et al., 2006).

The geomorphology of Western Black Sea Region (Turkey) coastal zones is particularly mountainous and scarp; partly craggy in patches. Therefore, transportation is relatively difficult with narrow and meandering roads allowing limited, slow and slightly dangerous travel. Construction campaign of new roads introducing highways and tunnels to the region result in development and progress of transportation. Nevertheless, these transportation improvements lead to negative impacts and disturbances on the landscape ecology and environment generating fragments, discrete patches and habitats (Forman and Alexander, 1998; Forman and Deblinger, 2000). Amasra and Kurucaşile route is part of this road construction campaign which have been initiated since the beginning of this century and still continuing.

In order to evaluate the landscape ecological values, the spatial and seasonal variation of the landscape components along the roadside of Amasra and Kurucaşile route within part of the coastal zone in Bartın Province were investigated in this study. The roadside landscape components primarily involve forest stands, agricultural areas, reefs and settlements; particularly in the form of villages. Many literatures have applied NDVI technique of remote sensing to analyze the landscape ecology (e.g. Liu et al., 2012; Dahlin et al., 2014).

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