Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Procedia Engineering 169 ( 2016 ) 324 – 331 4th International Conference on Countermeasures to Urban Heat Island (UHI) 2016 Urbanization and the Use of Climate Knowledge in Erzurum, Turkey Dogan Dursuna*, Merve Yavasa aDepartment of City and Regional Planning, Ataturk University, Erzurum, 25240, Turkey Abstract The main objective of this paper is to explore specific gaps between practices of urban planning and climate knowledge in Turkey. In this context, the city of Erzurum as one of the coldest climate cities in Turkey is used as paradigmatic case to show this gap. The paper starts with the overview of first urban development plans and continued with the analysis of a questionnaire survey of Erzurum local authorities. The findings showed that all related persons neglect climate knowledge in decision making and implementation process due to the market conditions, demands, local policies and technical problems. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the 4th IC2UHI2016. Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the 4th IC2UHI2016 Keywords: Climate Knowledge; Urbanization; Local Authority; Planning; Erzurum 1. Introduction Through the urbanization process, planned or unplanned developments are all affecting the urban climate. There is a difference between the temperatures of urban and rural areas. As it is stated by Oke [1] urbanization creates 12°C differences between urban and rural temperatures for night time. As it is explained in the literature as urban heat island effect, it becomes one of the important things determining livability of cities and affecting the quality of life. Urban design elements can be the reasons of both positive and negative climate related developments in urban areas such as urban heat island, air pollution, changing wind pattern, flood and surface temperature differences [2]. As the observation of these problems is increased through the last decade, it became an urgent need to change * Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 442 231 1607; fax: +90 442 231 5881. E-mail address: [email protected] 1877-7058 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the 4th IC2UHI2016 doi: 10.1016/j.proeng.2016.10.040 Dogan Dursun and Merve Yavas / Procedia Engineering 169 ( 2016 ) 324 – 331 325 planning process in Turkey to include local climate conditions. It is clearly seen from Turkish example that total impact of the climatic data on the production of urban place is very low. Similarly, there is scarcely any interaction between climatology and planning in the case study area; Erzurum. In fact, climate consideration in planning has two thousand years of history starting from books of Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius [3]. As he discussed the form of buildings and layout of the settlements according to the climatic influences in those books, climate considerations for urban design have always been in the agenda of local building tradition. This has been changed in the period of industrialization. However, the importance of climate aspects in urban design has been understood again after 1970s’ energy crisis. All around the world, interaction between climatology and planning processes has been started to be emphasized from that time. Accordingly, especially in European countries, it is known that climatologists have been doing measurements from a very long time and they have been producing climate maps within comprehensive spatial context [3]. There are number of cases integrating climate knowledge to planning system in different parts of the world, but such kind of organizations and approaches cannot be observed in Turkey. Although there are many examples including climate consideration into the planning process in foreign countries, it is stated that the level of integration is not enough also for those countries [3, 4, 5]. In the light of above mentioned information, this study searches for an answer to the question of why climatic considerations are not integrated into the planning process in the case study area of Erzurum. It is determined as a case due to the dominant climate conditions (winter city) forming the daily life and defining the urban identity. In this context, some subtitles such as sufficiency and efficiency of climate data, problem areas, the uses and stages of them and aims of using climatology in planning process are defined. Besides, urban planners, climatologists and engineers were determined and used as target groups. Erzurum is a city situated 1757 meters’ altitude in eastern part of Turkey with its population of 780,000 in 2011 and the fourth largest city with its 25,066 km² area. It has a humid continental climate according to the Koppen Climate Classification [6]. It is a climatic region typified by large seasonal temperature differences with warm to hot summers and cold (sometimes severely cold) winters. While the sunny days are almost in low level, snowing is major. It is one of the coldest cities in Turkey with its very cold winter months with an average minimum during January of around -16°C. Under its climatic conditions, some negative effects are observed in Erzurum as the short daytime, air pollution, temperature differences, icy roads and pedestrian ways, and oblique angle of sunlight. They are generating deep impacts on the patterns of urban life [8]. These conditions restrict the activities of people in urban life by reducing the variation of outdoor activities. On the other hand, for some of people, winter conditions provide a beauty of nature and some recreational and sporting activities can be made under these conditions. The task of urban planners under these circumstances is to incorporate climate conditions into planning practices [9]. In this process, reducing inconvenience, protection from winter based stressors and utilization from the beneficial aspects should be the strategies necessitating highly creative approaches [8]. Achieving climate sensitive urban planning and design necessitates the understanding of climate conditions and the integration of them into the urban planning processes. This study aimed to answer important questions for the successful integration of climate knowledge in urban planning for the city of Erzurum by asking them to the planners, climatologists and mayors. 2. Methodology The basic hypothesis of this study is that climate knowledge has no impacts on urban planning and decision processes in Erzurum, Turkey in spite of its dominant winter conditions. This hypothesis is based on the analysis of urbanization practices realized in the city [10, 11, 12]. In order to prove this hypothesis, the research is carried out in two stages. At the initial stage of the analyses, first urban plans and plan reports of the city were analyzed to evaluate the use of climate knowledge through planning process. According to the information obtained from plan documents, urbanization processes of that time were interpreted within the perspective of climate analysis and climate sensitive urban planning decisions. Secondly, semi structural interviews were made with the representatives of the four central municipalities and related two institutions in the city. Informants are selected from the persons representing the planning system and having experience of climate analysis and information. Then, interviews were defined and realized with the representatives of Erzurum Metropolitan Municipality, three central district municipalities and the regional directorate of state meteorology. Additionally, an interview was made with the 326 Dogan Dursun and Merve Yavas / Procedia Engineering 169 ( 2016 ) 324 – 331 coordinator of the plan in North East Anatolian Development Agency as the responsive authority of TRA1 (Nuts2) Level Regional Plan. In this analysis process, an investigation was made with the aim of answering four main questions that are: “do you know and accept the importance of the use of climate knowledge in urban planning processes?, what is the level and different uses of climate information in planning process?, and, how and when do you use climate knowledge in urban planning?”. The findings showed the missing links between climate knowledge and urban planning process in Erzurum case. 3. Results 3.1. Climate consideration and first development plans of Erzurum This part of the paper examines the use of climate knowledge through the first planning experiences of case study area. It aims to analyze the accumulation of knowledge related to climate consideration through the spatial history. In order to have an overview of the planning processes of Erzurum four main references used; i.e. the conservation plan report of Erzurum Metropolitan Municipality [13], and studies of Hayati Doganay [14], Neslihan Demircan [15] and Merve Yavas [16]. According to those studies, urban development process of Erzurum began before 15th century in the rectangular area surrounded by Grand Mosque, Twin Minaret Madrasah, Yakutiye Madrasa and Ahmadiyya Madrasa. In the 17th century, the city has spread to a large extent to the northern direction. In the 18th century, settled places have reached to areas on east side, where the current Azizia and Mecidiye bastions located on the hillsides, and to Erzurum-Kars way on the south side. After 1830s, urban form has changed with the demolition of the city wall; that once fortified city started to extend beyond the wall. The ongoing process has witnessed the vanishing of the old settlement pattern. After the republican period, planned development and urbanization process has started in whole country. In order to realize these processes, foreign planners were invited to Turkey to plan some cities such as østanbul, Ankara, Trabzon and Erzurum. In 1939, the first plan of Erzurum was made by French Urban Planner J.H.Lambert.