Page 149 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 4

Orhan İNCE - H. Abdullah UÇAN et al.

1. Introduction

Climate change is considered to be one of the most important issues of
our century (While and Whitehead, 2013). There are some unusual concrete
indicators of changing climatic conditions affecting the settlements. Extension
of the consequences caused by climate change vary according to different
characteristics of countries such as financial infrastructure, income inequality,
location, geographical structure (Pata et al., 2022). However, as a result of
extreme weather events and related disasters, an average of more than one
million people have lost their lives in the last two decades and have resulted
in financial losses amounted to $ 3 trillion. These values are 75% higher than in
the pre-2000 period (UNOPS, 2021). The increase in the frequency and severity
of natural disasters such as melting glaciers, drought, storms and floods due to
the increase in temperature values are the events affected by climate change
(Zhao et al., 2022). Melt water level increases with the melting of glaciers in many
regions, and meadow areas with methane sink areas may turn into swamps,
causing the release of methane, which is the most abundant greenhouse gas
after carbon dioxide (Xing et al., 2022; Zhu et al., 2023). As a result, changes in
climate parameters threaten urban settlements.
The threat posed by climatic risks to socio-ecological sustainability, which
associates physical, social and economic life in the world with ecology and
the environment, is directly related to the emissions produced by urban
instruments and land management (Szewrański and Kazak, 2020; Alibašić,
2022; Isinkaralar, 2023). The world’s population is expected to triple between
2000 and 2030 (Anguluri and Narayanan, 2017; Mansuroğlu et al., 2021) and
the processes formed by the influence of urban dynamics trigger each other
subsequently with atmospheric events (Isinkaralar, 2022). The consequences
of urban processes such as urban activities based on excessive consumption,
interventions in natural land cover and ecological structure, which have
increased along with industrialization, are held responsible for emissions
(Beillouin et al., 2022). As a result of increasing emissions, the change in
climate indicators is gaining momentum. Therefore, the activities carried out
in urban areas and the effects of climate change are at mutual interaction.
IPCC’s assessment reports, which describe the analyses and strategies
that guide the world against climate risks for urban areas, reveal the most
comprehensive indicators on climate assessment in history. The current report
underlines the duration and vulnerability of exposure to climate risks, as
well as climate hazards (IPCC, 2022). In this context, it is of vital significance
to investigate the spatial changes of the climate and to produce defence
strategies against the risks faced by all living things.

138 The Journal of Environment, Urban and Climate