Integrating Ecosystem Vulnerability in the Environmental Regulation Plan of Izmir (Turkey)—What Are the Limits and Potentialities?

Abstract

The land-use regulatory framework in Turkey is composed of several hierarchical plans. The Environmental Regulation Plan pursues comprehensive planning management, which ranges between 1/100,000 and 1/25,000 and defines the framework for local master plans. Unfortunately, there is scarce knowledge of how these plans effectively protect the environment. Besides, these plans have poor consideration of socio-economic dynamics and the ecosystem vulnerability, while evaluating the actual conflicts or synergies within the localization of ecological conservation and settlement expansion areas. In this work, an ecosystem-based geodatabase was created for the western Izmir area (Turkey). The dataset has been created by employing a supervised classification sampling of Sentinel-2 images acquired on 28 March 2021, while accessing ONDA-DIAS services to L2C products. Then, the InVEST software was used to map the Habitat Quality and the Habitat Decay, while the ArcMap raster analysis tool was employed to generate the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. The results were used to classify the ecosystem vulnerability of the western metropolitan area of Izmir and then superimposed to the Environmental Regulation Plan of the city of Izmir (2021), thus evaluating synergies and conflicts. Although integration of the ecosystem services approach into spatial planning is lacking in the planning practice of Turkey, the paper provides an operative methodology to integrate ecosystem evaluation in environmental planning as a basic strategy to support sustainable development.

Multi-Scenario Simulation Analysis of Land Use Impacts on Habitat Quality in Tianjin Based on the PLUS Model Coupled with the InVEST Model

“…Another group of scholars assessed habitat quality based on the SLEUTH model [4] and the InVEST model [5][6][7]. The InVEST model has been widely used by scholars because it not only considers threat factors, but it also has good applicability and accuracy [8,9]. However, most studies have chosen ecological reserves as their study areas [10,11], and there are fewer articles focusing on cities, ignoring the importance of habitat quality studies for the sustainable development of cities; despite the increasing attention being paid to the impact of urban expansion on habitat quality, there are few existing studies on the topic.…”

Municipal Territoriality: The Impact of Centralized Mechanisms and Political and Structural Factors on Reducing Spatial Inequality

“…In a similar vein, inclusive urban planning, sustainable planning, and the socio-spatial landscape of urban areas also require land and space as a precondition for their sustainability [15]. This need is especially relevant for urban areas that suffer from vulnerability and a lack of resources or lack of land [4,16,17].…”

An Operational Model to Downscale Regional Green Infrastructures in Supra-Local Plans: A Case Study in an Italian Alpine Sub-Region

“…In this frame, the GI downscaling process towards local implementation requires addressing the following two major issues, respectively: the scalability of GI strategies concerning their spatial dimension, and the coherence within the different planning levels involved. On the one hand, the translation of broad principles and objectives into sitespecific actions and strategies requires detailing and adapting the GI spatial design [45][46][47] as well as acquiring data required for local spatial knowledge and assessing the coherence between a large-scale spatial design and smaller-scale implementations. A further critical step is choosing proper and suitable solutions (including nature-based solutions-NBSs) to guarantee ecological, environmental, social and mobility benefits to people through ES improvement [21,48].…”