Changing ecological environment before and after coastline filling designs

Abstract

Coastlines are tectonically active places with an impact on physical as well as social and economic restructuring of cities. They play an essential role in the development of urban areas. Furthermore, coastal environments may offer important health benefits. They may also present numerous threats to human health and well-being time to time. With the rapid urbanization in coastal cities, the lack of urban green space and transportation problems have emerged recently, and the cities have grown towards the sea by coastal filling areas as a solution. Especially the construction of highway on the coastline in the Black Sea region of Turkey has adversely impacted relationship between the people and the sea in the city of Trabzon. In this study, initially a literature review was conducted and parameters were specified for coastline usages. A survey study was conducted with 140 individuals who actively use the coastline in the city of Trabzon, in order to specify the past and current coastline usages. The evaluation of the past and current usage shows that people want to meet the sea but feel uncomfortable with the landscape with the fillings. According to the Anova test, the unmodified form of area was chosen to ‘have a more natural landscape (5.77)’ while the modified form of area was preferred ‘to be renovated (4.12)’. This highlights the users’ longing for the past. Therefore, authorities need to address the impact of differences between parameters in depth on the usage of the area on the coastal landscape. Coastal ecology solutions should also be produced with the ecological design approaches.