Ecological Memory and Socio-Ecological Resilience Approach Within the Scope of Muğla Wildfires

Burak Beyhan; Feray Koca

doi:10.15320/ICONARP.2022.205

Authors

Burak Beyhan Muğla University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7301-4639
Feray Koca Muğla University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0351-8123

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15320/ICONARP.2022.205

Keywords:

Ecological memory, ecosystem, Muğla, resilience, wildfires

Abstract

The climate change crisis stemming from anthropogenic reasons has triggered severe weather events and disasters all over the world in recent years. In this context, the main purpose of the paper is to reveal the importance of ecological memory in the face of the wildfires threatening our living spaces and taking place between 29 July-12 August 2021 throughout Muğla Province, and to divulge basic strategies for the future of the region by questioning the resilience of ecosystem. The damage caused by wildfires are determined by using satellite images and remote sensing methods in GIS. Accordingly, the borders of burned areas were determined by using mainly remote sensing data according to the degree of burn severity on the basis of NBR. In turn, these borders were overlapped with CLC data and administrative borders at different scales for determination of the land cover types of the burned areas and the urban areas affected. Subsequently, the actual surface areas of the burned regions were calculated by using SRTM GL1 satellite images. The results show that not only forest assets, but also agricultural areas, production areas, mining areas, urban transportation network and residential areas were damaged by the wildfires. Although burned areas can be calculated by using remote sensing methods as done in this study, exact delimitation of fire zones and precise distribution of the burned areas according to land cover types also require in-situ work. Hence, the scope of the paper doesn’t cover these issues that can only be addressed by future studies. Overall, the paper proposes a framework for questioning the socio-ecological resilience of the ecosystem in the upcoming period of the disasters that threaten our living spaces, and formulates a set of strategies for spatial planning by employing a socio-ecological approach for increasing the resilience of habitats by revealing ecological memory.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biographies

Burak Beyhan, Muğla University

Burak Beyhan is a Professor at the Department of City and Regional Planning, Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University. He received his degrees (B.CP., M.RP., and Ph.D.) in the Department of City and Regional Planning at METU, in Ankara, Turkey. His main research interests are in the areas of urban and regional planning, regional development and innovation systems, geographic information systems (GIS) in planning, and urban and planning history in Turkey.

Feray Koca, Muğla University

Feray Koca is an Associate Professor at the Department of City and Regional Planning, Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University. She received her B.Sc. degree in the Department of Landscape Architecture, Ankara University, and M.UD., and Ph.D. degrees in the Department of City and Regional Planning at METU, in Ankara, Turkey. Her main research interests are in the areas of urban design and planning, urban morphology, environmental policies, management and issues, traditional settlements and settlement pattern in Turkey.

References

Clavet, C., Topik, C., Harrell, M., Holmes, P., Healy, R., & Wear, D. (2021). Wildfire resilience funding: Building blocks for a Paradigm shift, The Nature Conservancy.

CORINE Land Cover (CLC), (2018). Arazi Örtüsü Verisi.

Congedo, L. (2021). Semi-Automatic Classification Plugin: A Python tool for the download and processing of remote sensing images in QGIS, Journal of Open Source Software, 6(64), 3172. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.03172

Cumhuriyet Gazetesi (2021). Muğla'da 66 bin hektar orman yandı, https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/muglada-66-bin-hektar-orman-yandi-1859130

Eisenberg, C., Anderson, C.L., Collingwood, A., Sissons, R., Dunn, C.J., Meigs, G.W., Hibbs, D.E., Murphy, S., Kuiper, S.D., Spear Chief-Morris, J., Bear, L.L., Johnston, B., & Edson, C.B. (2019). Out of the ashes: ecological resilience to extreme wildfire, prescribed burns, and indigenous burning in ecosystems. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 436.

Gonzalez-Mathiesen, C., Ruane, S., & March, A. (2020). Integrating wildfire risk management and spatial planning – A historical review of two Australian planning systems, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 53, 101984.

HGK (2021). Türkiye Mülki İdare Sınırları, Dağıtım Formatı: ESRI shp. https://www.harita.gov.tr/urun/turkiye-mulki-idare-sinirlari/232.

Johnstone, J. F., Allen, C. D., Franklin, J. F., Frelich, L. E., Harvey, B. J., Higuera, P. E., Mack, M. C., Meentemeyer, R. K., Metz, M. R., Perry, G. LW., Schoennagel, T., & Turner, M. G. (2016). Changing disturbance regimes, ecological memory, and forest resilience, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 14(7), 369–378.

Kavlak, M.Ö., Çabuk, S.N., & Çetin, M. (2021). Development of forest fire risk map using geographical information systems and remote sensing capabilities: Ören case, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 28, 33265–33291.

Kavlak, M.Ö., Kurtipek, A., & Çabuk, S.N. (2020). Coğrafi Bilgi Sistemleri İle Orman Yangını Risk Haritası Oluşturulması: Ören Örneği, Dirençlilik Dergisi, 4(1), 33-54.

Keeley, J. E. (2009). Fire intensity, fire severity and burn severity: a brief review and suggested usage, International Journal of Wildland Fire, 18(1), 116-126.

Key, C. H., Benson, N., Ohlen, D., Howard, S. M., & Zhu, Z. (2002). The normalized burn ratio and relationships to burn severity: ecology, remote sensing and implementation [Paper presentation], Ninth Biennial Remote Sensing Applications Conference, Apr 8–12, San Diego, CA.

Key, C. H., & Benson, N. C. (2006). Landscape assessment (LA). In: Lutes, D. C., Keane, R. E., Caratti, J. F., Key, C. H., Benson, N. C., Sutherland, S., & Gangi, L. J. (Eds.), FIREMON: Fire effects monitoring and inventory system, General Technical Report, RMRS-GTR-164-CD, Fort Collins, CO: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, p. 1-55, 164.

Llorens, R., Sobrino, J. A., Fernández, C., Fernández-Alonso, J. M., & Vega, J. A. (2021). A methodology to estimate forest fires burned areas and burn severity degrees using Sentinel-2 data. Application to the October 2017 fires in the Iberian Peninsula, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 95, 102243.

Lutes, D. C., Keane, R. E., Caratti, J. F., Key, C. H., Benson, N. C., Sutherland, S., & Gangi, L. J. (2006). FIREMON: Fire Effects Monitoring and Inventory System. General Technical Report, RMRS-GTR-164-CD, Fort Collins, CO: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_gtr164.pdf

Mashhadi, N., & Algancı, U. (2021). Determination of forest burn scar and burn severity from free satellite images: a comparative evaluation of spectral indices and machine learning classifiers. International Journal of Environment and Geoinformatics, 8(4), 488-497.

McWethy, D.B., Schoennagel, T., Higuera, P.E., Krawchuk, M., Harvey, B. J., Metcalf, E. C., Schultz, C., Miller, C., Metcalf, A. L., Buma, B., Virapongse, A., Kulig, J. C., Stedman, R. C., Ratajczak, Z., Nelson, C. R., & Kolden, C. (2019). Rethinking resilience to wildfire, Nature Sustainability, 2 (2019): 797–804. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0353-8

NASA SRTM (2013). Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) GL 1.

Nasery, S., & Kalkan K. (2020). Burn Area Detection and Burn Severity Assessment Using Sentinel 2 MSI Data: The Case of Karabağlar District, İzmir/Turkey, Turkish Journal of Geosciences, 1(2), 72-77.

OGM (2021). Yüzdelik Olarak İllere Göre Orman Varlığı. https://web.ogm.gov.tr/Documents/Orman_Varligi_Dosyalari/Yuzdelik-Illere-Gore-Orman-Varligi.pdf.

OGM (2022). Yangın Yönetim Planları/Muğla OBM. https://web.ogm.gov. tr/ekutuphane/Dokumanlar/Yangın Yönetim Planları/Muğla OBM.

Pepe, M., & Parente, C. (2018). Burned area recognition by change detection analysis using images derived from Sentinel-2 satellite: The case study of Sorrento Peninsula, Italy. Journal of Applied Engineering Science, 16(2), 225-232.

Peterson, G.D. (2002). Contagious disturbance, ecological memory, and the emergence of landscape pattern. Ecosystems, 5(4), 329-338.

Polat, N., Kaya, Y. (2021). Çok Bantlı Uydu Görüntüleriyle Orman Yangınlarında Hasar Tespiti, Bartın Orman Fakültesi Dergisi, 23(1), 172-181.

QGIS (2021). Quantum GIS. https://qgis.org/

Roy, D. P., Huang, H., Boschetti, L., Giglio, L., Yan, L., Zhang, H. H., & Li, Z. (2019). Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 burned area mapping-A combined sensor multi-temporal change detection approach. Remote Sensing of Environment, 231, 111254.

SAGA (2021). System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses. http://www.saga-gis.org/en/index.html

Saulino, L., Rita, A., Migliozzi, A., Maffei, C., Allevato, E., Garonna, A. P., & Saracino, A. (2020). Detecting burn severity across mediterranean forest types by coupling medium-spatial resolution satellite imagery and field data, Remote Sensing, 12(4), 741.

Selles, O. A., Rissman, A. R. (2020). Content analysis of resilience in forestfire science and management, Land Use Policy, 94, 104483, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104483

Sobrino, J. A., Llorens, R., Fernández, C., Fernández-Alonso, J. M., & Vega, J. A. (2019). Relationship between forest fires severity measured in situ and through remotely sensed spectral indices, Forests, 10(5), 457.

Sözcü Gazetesi (2021) Muğla’da orman yangınlarının bilançosu ortaya çıktı. https://www.sozcu.com.tr/2021/gundem/muglada-orman-yanginlarinin-bilancosu-ortaya-cikti-6584017/

Strand, E.K., Satterberg, K.L., Hudak, A.T., Byrne, J., Khalyani, A.H., & Smith, A. (2019). Does burn severity affect plant community diversity and composition in mixed conifer forests of the United States Intermountain West one decade post fire? Fire Ecology, 15(1), 1-22.

Sümer, Ö., Akin, A., & Tekin, A. (2020). Antropojen ve Antroposen kavramlarının tarihsel gelişimine yerbilimsel bir bakış, Türkiye Jeoloji Bülteni, 63(1), 1-20.

Thompson, M.P., Bowden, P., Brough, A., Scott, J.H., Gilbertson-Day, J., Taylor, A., Anderson, J., & Haas, J.R. (2016). Application of Wildfire Risk Assessment Results to Wildfire Response Planning in the Southern Sierra Nevada, California, USA, Forests, 7, 64. doi:10.3390/f7030064

Türkeş, M., & Altan, G. (2013). İklimsel değişimlerin ve orman yanginlarinin Muğla Yöresi’ndeki doğal çevre, doğa koruma alanlari ve biyotaya etkilerinin bir ekolojik biyocoğrafya çözümlemesi, Ege Coğrafya Dergisi, 22/2, 57-76, İzmir.

Walker, R.B, Coop, J.D, Downing, W.M, Krawchuk, M.A, Malone, S.L, & Meigs, G.W. (2019). How much forest persists through fire? High-resolution mapping of tree cover to characterize the abundance and spatial pattern of fire refugia across mosaics of burn severity. Forests, 10(9), 782.

Weirather, M., Zeug, G., & Schneider, T. (2018). Automated Delineation of Wildfire Areas Using Sentinel-2 Satellite Imagery. GI_Forum 2018, 6, 251-262.