Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
PLANLAMA-PLANNING, cilt.26, sa.2, ss.147-159, 2016 (ESCI)
It is well known fact that there is a determinative relationship between urban place and ecosystem. Increase of the level of human comfort in daily life within the well-defined relationship between urban place and climate is the common point for all of the thermal comfort studies focused on the interactions between them. Although there are so many studies in the literature about these issues, it could not be said that we have climatically comfortable cities in our country. This shows the urgent need of change for local governments and policies associating climate data and planning practices, and transferring this knowledge into implementation. Local governments are the responsible actor for the planning and implementation process of urban place and controller of the built environment. In this context, the city of Erzurum which is known with its climatic characteristics as winter city is determined as the case area. The main aim of this study is the determination of whether climatic data and winter conditions affects planning processes, local policy and strategies as well as the definition of the reasons. Within this framework, interviews were made with the representors of Erzurum Metropolitan Municipality and three Central District Municipalities; and also strategical, regional and old development plans were examined. On the other hand, interview was made with the director of the District Office of the General Directorate of Meteorology in order to evaluate whether there is lack of technical knowledge and systematic information about climatic conditions. The findings show that there is a lack of systematic information. Although awareness about the importance of climatic conditions is high, use of this knowledge in the planning process is very limited. Also it is observed that local governments' perceptions of climate and winter conditions are still negative. Their attitudes towards winter and its positive externalities are only related to the winter tourism and skiing. It is clearly observed from Erzurum case that inexistence of relationships among climatologists, urban planners and local governors should be changed. This study was made with the aim of suggesting some general solutions and creating awareness about the climate change problems which we are experiencing in our country now and also constituting a starting point for the studies concentrating on the interactions between planners, climatologists and governors.