Evaluating land use/land cover changes and fragmentation in the Camili forest planning unit of northeastern Turkey from 1972 to 2005

Abstract

Changes in land use/land cover have important consequences on the management of natural resources including soil and water quality, global climatic systems and biodiversity. This study analysed the spatial and temporal pattern of land use/land cover change in the Camili forest planning unit that includes the Camili Biosphere Reserve Area within the Caucasian hotspot, in the northeast corner of Turkey. To assess the patterns during a 33-year period, the necessary data were obtained from forest stand maps and evaluated with Geographic Information Systems and FRAGSTATS. Results showed that the total forested areas increased from 19 946Á5 ha (78Á6% of the study area) in 1972 to 20 797Á3 ha (81Á9 per cent) in 2005 with a slight net increase of 851 ha. Softwood cover types (411Á8 ha) completely transitioned to other cover types over 33-year period. In terms of spatial configuration, the total number of forest fragments increased from 172 to 608, and mean size of forest patch (MPS) decreased from 147Á7 ha to 41Á8 ha during the period. Nearly 84 per cent of the patches in 1972 and 93 per cent of them in 2005 generally seem to concentrate into 0-100 ha patch size class, indicating more fragmented landscape over time that might create a risk for the maintenance of biodiversity of the area. There were apparent trends in the temporal structure of forest landscape, some of which may issue from mismanagement of the area, social conflict, and illegal utilization of forest resources due to ineffective forest protection measurements. The study revealed that it is important to understand both spatial and temporal changes of land use/land cover and their effects on landscape pattern to disclose the implications for land use planning and management.

Forest cover change and fragmentation using Landsat data in Maçka State Forest Enterprise in Turkey

“…Small farms were abandoned followed by rapid urbanization as more and more people left the rural areas to become resident in urban centers. Decrease in the urban population might likely lead to the release of human pressure to forest areas, probably resulting in a positive development of forest areas (Karanth et al 2006;Sivrikaya et al 2007a). …”

Spatiotemporal changes of landscape pattern in response to deforestation in Northeastern Turkey: a case study in Rize

“…Some recent applications of these tools to illustrate spatiotemporal dynamics of land use and forest cover have been reported by many researchers (Verburg et al 1999;Kammerbauer and Ardon 1999;Luque 2000;Nagashima et al 2002;Turner et al 2003;Kennedy and Spies 2004;Zhang et al 2004;Wakeel et al 2007;Echeverria et al 2006;Cayuela et al 2006). To date, especially recently, there have been a few studies attempting to document the temporal changes in forest ecosystem patters in Turkey using GIS and RS techniques (Yıldırım et al 2002;Alphan 2003;Musaoglu et al 2006Musaoglu et al , 2007Doygun and Alphan 2006;Kılıç et al 2006;Güler et al 2007;Sivrikaya et al 2007;Başkent and Kadıoğulları 2007;Kadıoğulları and Başkent 2007). These studies generally documented the spatial and temporal land use and forest cover changes as well as the factors affecting these processes.…”

Monitoring forest structure at landscape level: a case study of Scots pine forest in NE Turkey

“…The annual rate of change is calculated with equation 1 by comparing the area under forest cover in the same region at two different times. The concept of forestation rate was used instead of deforestation rate (Puyravaud 2003;Sivrikaya et al 2007) as the forested area increased. As an overall change in study area, there was a net 1823.3 ha increase of forest area.…”