Page 167 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 4

Fred Barış Ernst - İbrahim Yenigün

Introduction

In the recent half century, in particular, urbanization has been increasing at
an unprecedented rate in many regions, including Türkiye. Even 2007 was a
turning point in terms of more than half of the world’s population living in cities,
according to UN reports (UNFPA, 2007). Rapid urbanization has led to slum
development causing political, security, environmental and economic crises.
The problems have also grown even more and become more severe with the
migration movements triggered after the wars in recent years. However, the
main question is whether the negativities experienced represent the causes
or symptoms of a problem. Many experts believe that the current situation
is a symptom of the underlying problem of ineffective planning systems and
incomplete applications. Germany after World War II is indicated as the most
important proof for this approach. This is because twelve million refugees
from the former East Germany after the war were housed in a planned
and systematic way, without allowing even a small number of squatting
(Kommunalinfo Mannheim, 2017).
Türkiye is among the countries in the world under the threat of “natural
disasters”, especially earthquakes and floods. The most important reasons
for this situation are that it is located on two major fault lines (North Anatolian
and East Anatolian fault lines) and is one of the countries that are greatly
affected by climate change (Ministry of Environment and Urbanization,
2019). Meteorological records indicate that the temperatures in the country
are constantly increasing and that 2020 became the third warmest year
(TRT World, 2021). However, the Turkish State Meteorological Service (2015)
published a report in which the most accurate simulation based on three
different climate change models was calculated. It was stated that if the RCP
8.5 (Science On a Sphere, 2023) scenario here is realized, the temperature
0
will increase by 2.5 C, the amount of precipitation will decrease to 250 mm.
In addition, along the Black Sea coast, it was observed that precipitation
has increased in the region that is already humid in recent years, and there
has been great damage especially to infrastructure and loss of life. Seventy
people died and many settlements were destroyed in the devastating floods
experienced in the region in 2021 (BBC, 2021). However, major floods in arid
regions such as Sanliurfa, which caused the death of 20 people recently, have
revealed the fact that such disasters are not problems specific to coastal and
humid regions, they can be experienced in every region (BBC, 2023). Besides,
it is one of the accepted hard realities that the geography of Türkiye is an
earthquake zone for hundreds of years and has been the scene of earthquakes
large and destructive enough to included in the world literature. Especially
the earthquakes experienced in Türkiye in the last century have been entered

156 The Journal of Environment, Urban and Climate