Page 187 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 1

Gamze Kazancı Altınok

Introduction

In the early 1990s, around 15% of the World population lived in the cities,
while according to the United Nations (UN) statistics, urban population ratio
was 50.5% (Bai et al., 2005: 55). Due to the intensive urbanization process
observed all around the World and the effects of other anthropogenic factors
on natural resources and services, nature (soil, water, and atmosphere) is
greatly affected (IPCC, 2007: 37). Particularly due to human activities, it is
known that negative outcomes such as greenhouse gas emissions increase
climate change effects that result in changes in land use. (Braganza and
Church, 2011: 17; IPCC, 2011: 33; Mandal et al., 2019: 1713). Thus, climate
change adaptation and risk mitigation policies towards reducing the effects
of climate change are being developed (Balaban, 2012: 23; Kazancı and
Tezer, 2021: 302). The overall policies aim to do forestation practices towards
total greenhouse gas emission mitigation, make concentrations in the cities
more compact, vary transport options, develop energy consumption in the
city, and thus take urban growth under control and manage changes in land
use policies (Gleeson et al., 2010: 6; Melia and Barton, 2011: 48; McEvoy
and Wilder, 2012: 357). In other words, for the reduction of negative effects
resulting from climate change, it is important to review urban growth and land
use policies.
It is frequently discussed in literature that urban growth triggers not only
climate change, but also global-local warming (Cooley et al., 2006:10; Hunt
and Watkiss, 2011:27; McEvoy and Wilder, 2012: 357; EC, 2018: 45). That is,
the transformation of undeveloped areas (such as environment, wasteland,
etc.) defined as urban growth into urban areas, changes the biophysiological
features, ecosystem services and arrangement of the area. Thus, it triggers
climate change and may result in an increase in the effects of climate change.
(Melia and Barton, 2011: 48). As it doesn’t require any restrictions to take
control of nature, urban growth paradigm has negative environmental effects
on cities as well as nature (McEvoy and Wilder, 2012: 359). With an approach
focusing on urban growth, wetlands and areas where habitat is divided into
sections and coastal regions are seen as potential growth areas, experiencing
variable environmental effects such as loss of biodiversity and lack of ecosystem
services (Cooley et al, 2006:11; Johnson, 2001:4; Haase et al, 2013: 6).
In the light of the information above, in addition to natural climate change,
it is known that anthropogenic factors also increase the effects of climate
change (IPCC, 2007: 24). Ad anthropogenic factors increase greenhouse gas
emissions, urban heat island effect, overflows, extreme weather conditions and
social problems may emerge as effects of climate change. These problems,

172 Journal of Environment, Urbanization and Climate,