EVALUATION OF URBAN WATER SYSTEMS THROUGH STREAM - USER - CITY INTERACTIONS:THE EXAMPLE OF İZMİR MELES STREAM
Project no. 20521 · Status: Kapanmış · 2019
Summary
Streams contribute to the social, cultural, economic and ecological development of cities as ecological corridors that connect cities, or parts of the city, and enable many uses. However, as a result of the rapid urbanization process, river systems remain under the pressure of intensive use, often losing their natural quality and turned into open channels flowing inside the city. Discharge from industrial facilities or domestic wastes from settlements established around the rivers cause the water quality to deteriorate and living conditions in the surrounding areas to be affected negatively over time. Meles Stream, which constitutes the subject of this research, appears as a stream that extends between the east and the south of İzmir City and flows through the most dense settlements and developed areas of the city, before entering into the Gulf of Izmir. The name of the stream, which has frequently been mentioned throughout history, and which has been accepted as meaning “Holy” in historical inscriptions, has been recorded in the works of Homer. The stream has been on commercial routes throughout history, with the ancient Caravan Bridge, one of the oldest man-made structures in continuous use, spoken of by travellers over the centuries. In the 20th century, with the pressure of rapid urbanization, the first slums in İzmir city started to develop around the stream. In particular, waste from the leather factories established around the Meles stream, along with domestic waste, spilled uncontrollably and polluted the stream. The intensive use of ring roads and disjointed urbanization passing over the stream has narrowed its bed over time, causing the natural dynamics of the stream to be completely lost. These pressures have affected the environment of the stream and therefore the city. Instead of being a point of interest, the area through which the stream passes has now become a problematic issue for the city. The starting point of this study is to mobilize stakeholders from various sectors and to offer them versatile and functional solutions, and to emphasize that a systematic process is required on both a local and regional scale. The study aims to interpret the Meles stream within a stream-user-city relationship, determine the existing problems and the causes of these problems, and offer solutions to the problems. The study also aimed to emphasize the historical, social, cultural, economic, ecological, recreational importance of the stream and to bring forward proposals to enable it to play a more effective role for the city. In this context, and using the Delphi technique, the physical condition of the research area has been revealed, the current problems identified, and the impact values of these problems determined. Afterwards, the problems identified by the Delphi technique were clustered under the headings of ecological, socio - cultural, land use, technical - engineering and management, and a questionnaire study was carried out to determine how these problems were evaluated by the people living in this region. Based on the findings, comments on the whole subject were made. Solutions were developed on the basis of five main topics (ecological, socio - cultural, land use, technical - engineering, management), and how the impact levels determined in the previous stage could change if the suggested solutions were implemented. A diagram comparing the current situation and the targeted situation in the future was prepared. Keywords: Meles Stream, User, City, İzmir