Afforestation of arid and semiarid ecosystems in Turkey

Abstract

Deforestation in the arid and semiarid regions was followed by the formation of anthropogenic forests to anthropogenic steppes. Where degradation continues, steppes can turn into "anthropogenic deserts" across a wide range of landform features: plains, plateaus, or rugged mountains and hills (Boydak, 1997;Boydak and Çalışkan, 2015). Soils in most of these barren lands were compacted by over 50 years of intensive grazing accompanied by topsoil loss caused by water and wind erosion. Despite centuries of human activity, ninety percent of the forests in Turkey are 'native' (not planted) in origin and contain over 450 tree and shrub species (Mayer and Aksoy, 1998;Çolak and Rotherham, 2006).The Anatolian landscape was composed of 60%-70% forest and 10%-15% steppe 4000 years ago (Davis, 1965(Davis, -1988. The OGM (2014) stated that overgrazing, overcutting, fires, agriculture clearing, wars, and other misuse of the land have decreased the forest area to 26% while increasing the steppe area to 24% (Mayer and Aksoy, 1998;Çolak and Rotherham, 2006), but Uslu (1959) claimed that about half of the steppes in Central Anatolia are "anthropogenic. " Despite these differences, it is probable that up to half of the steppes in the Central Anatolia region possess "anthropogenic" characteristics Çalışkan, 2014, 2015).Forestlands in Turkey are thought to have declined from 50 million ha (Ürgenç, 1998) prior to human settlement to 21.7 million ha by 2012 (Boydak and Çalışkan, 2014). The Turkish Forest Service has afforested 3.5 million ha of land since 1945 mainly in the arid and semiarid regions, thereby enlarging the country's forest area. According to the 2014 report by the Turkish Ministry of Forest and Water Affairs, Turkey's forest area increased by about 1.5 million ha from 1972 to 2012. On the other hand, the current annual raw wood material consumption was about 40.7 million m 3 in 2014 (Boydak and Çalışkan, 2014).Turkey is one of the major floral regions in the world, with more than 12,000 taxa of herbaceous and woody species, of which 3500 species are endemic (Ekim et al., 2000). Turkey contains three important main vegetation zones and intersections of these zones: Euro-Siberian, Irano-Turanian, and Mediterranean vegetation zones (Figure 1). The rich vegetation in Turkey is because of its geographic location and the different climate and subclimate types. Turkey is located in the transition of temperate and tropical climates, containing the Asian continental and Eastern Mediterranean zones (Oliver, 1983;Boydak et al., 1995). The many climate and

Assessing the Effects of Desertification Control Projects from the Farmers’ Perspective: A Case Study of Yanchi County, Northern China

“…Jafarian et al used two spatial analysis models and two-dimensional matrix methodology to assess the effects of planting trees in the semi-arid areas in Iran, where forestation was shown to reduce the area classed as "very severe desertification" [7]. In addition, numerous previous studies gauged the effects of the DCPs spanning different time and space scales [8]. Da Silva et al took a semi-arid zone within northeastern Brazil as the study area, concluding that vegetation gain and the conversion of land use type decreased the rate of soil loss between 1987 and 2010 [9].…”

Cultivation of the Targeted Forest Plantations

“…The sustainability of targeted plantations not only ensures a constant profit but also provides sustainable management of arid and semi-arid forests and areas to create new forests on barren landscapes. According to a study of dry forests in Turkey [21], the increase in agricultural land, fires, and intensive deforestation have resulted in a 26% reduction of forest area between 1945 and 2014. The practice of target planting and reforestation also demonstrates high economic development and ecological level in the abandoned farms of Brasilia [22], semiarid areas of China [23], Spain [24], etc.…”

Utilizing a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) and Modified Analytical Hierarchical Analysis for Forest Road Network Planning in Afforested Lands

“…Reforestation activities of non-forest and deforested areas are also increasing daily [1]. Deforested areas destructed due to natural disasters such as fire and tornado, and anthropogenic disasters are reforested annually [2][3][4][5]. Moreover, afforestation increases the amount of forest covering the land of countries around the world.…”

“…Afforestation activities continuous dynamically in many parts of the world. Afforestation activities have lots of benefits and effects such as ecological restoration, enhancement of water retention capacity, erosion control, increasing carbon sequestration potential, and reducing the albedo effect [4,[7][8][9][10].…”

“…Re-afforestation activities are projected because they can include entire actions to be carried out in an area in the long term. Every stage of re-afforestation activities must be calculated and examined very seriously because re-afforestation works are very costly and laborintensive, and also because they are "long-term" works that are "beneficial for future generations" [4,[11][12][13].…”