Together with the rapid industrialization of the world, urbanization is also uncontrollably increasing. Such an increase in urbanization exerts the greatest pressure on natural resources, obligating people to live in intense structural spaces and increasing the need for green spaces in cities. Because of the expensive costs of horizontal surfaces being “green”, urban places are faced with serious green-infrastructure problems. In recent years, alternatives have been searched for to eliminate such deficiencies. These alternatives, such as rain gardens, green walls (GWs), ecological designs, and green roofs, are commonly included in urban landscape designs. Besides rocky or steep-slope natural green walls (NGWs), natural green covers over buildings, walls, and so forth, structural members are also encountered in urban or rural places. On the other hand, artificial green walls (AGWs) have recently been used as a significant component of urban design. Although the AGWs are able to address various functional needs, they have not yet gained the desired popularity because of construction costs, static loads, constructional damages, and maintenance costs. In addition, such sites are largely left to exotic species with limited ecological requirements; these species are far from meeting ecological functions and resistance to extreme conditions. This study was conducted for a benchmarking assessment of artificial and natural green walls (A&NGWs) with a high potential in urban landscape design not only for esthetics, but also for ecological and economical purposes. Plant species, initial establishment, maintenance costs, and some other parameters of selected GWs were assessed. The study was considered as pioneering research for low-cost minimum-maintenance AGWs to be included in urban landscape designs. It was concluded, on the basis of the present findings, that the GW systems established with natural plant species, rock, and other materials already existing in natural landscapes could be constructed at fairly low costs, and such wall systems could have great ecological contributions.

Unfortunately, we live in a greedy little world and horizontal areas are often too expensive to leave to nature on them. Therefore, creating gardens on vertical surfaces of urban areas has recently been very important to supporting sustainability because these surfaces are still found to be commercially useless compared with green areas which are generally under pressure from commercial demands and politics. However, these artificial vertical green surfaces are still too far from being common, while too many ordinary walls are spontaneously covered with vegetation already. In this study, we try to address the dynamics of wall vegetation as it has a great potential to make the cities more sustainable. Totally 70 walls (35 in urban and 35 in sub-urban areas) in Trabzon city were examined regarding their ecological, physical and vegetation characteristics. Having identified 1540 plant samples collected from the walls during a year-round intensive field study, we performed statistical analyzes to enumerate the wall vegetation depending on the ecological characteristics; to evaluate if there are different wall vegetation compositions in urban and sub-urban areas; and finally to evaluate growth conditions and basic challenges for the wall vegetation.

Urban growth has been fast for decades. Because money is very important in this urban-based world, humanity focuses on economic development, and is often too busy to deal with sustainability. Therefore, in a world that is constantly changing, creating sustainable cities that contain a diverse range of habitats supporting plant establishment is essential. Some surprising urban habitats in which plants can grow, such as cracks on pavements and walls, rocky areas, abandoned places and roofs might be extremely important for sustainability, while urban spaces are under artificial pressure. In this study, which suggesting a method to create more sustainable green roofs for urban areas, and considering roof vegetation is already important for supporting the ecology of urban areas, we surveyed 37 roofs in an urban part of Trabzon city focusing on the habitat effect. We found 51 plant species growing on these 37 roofs, and determined five different roof vegetation typologies in the research area. The main goal in any artificial green roof is to cover roof surfaces with vegetation, and success is considered a perfect coverage rate. We found roof surface size, species richness, size of the sunlit part, daily sunlight duration, and depth of the substrate are the most effective habitat attributes on vegetation coverage on rooftops in the research area.

The present study aimed to determine the total and net erosion in the Capakcur watershed, which has a high erosion risk. Accordingly, annual soil loss in the Capakcur watershed was estimated using RUSLE method. Net erosion was determined directly by measuring the monthly flow rate and sediment concentrations of the Capakcur stream, which originated from the Capakcur watershed and flowed into the Murat River throughout 2019. Estimated soil loss in the Capakcur watershed was 96916.20 ton yr-1, and the amount of soil transported from the Capakcur stream was 68656.09 ton yr-1. Sediment delivery ratio (SDR) was calculated as 0.78. This ratio was well above the average SDR of Turkey (0.23). Topographic factors such as slope length and degree, rainfall, and low vegetation cover ratio in the watershed are the main causes of the high SDR. Due to the high SDR, the fertile surface soil layers of lands in the basin are carried to the streams. This causes both decrease in fertility in soils and pollution of the limited freshwater resources. In order to improve vegetation and management practices in the watershed, soil protection practices such as afforestation and terraces, wire cages and stone walls in gullies should be increased.

Değişen yaşam koşulları ve insanların ekonomik, sosyal ve kültürel ihtiyaçlarının kırsal yerleşim alanlarında karşılanamaması kentsel alanlara göçü meydana getirmiştir. Beklenmeyen nüfus artışları konut ihtiyacını ortaya çıkarmış ve kentlerin merkezden dışarıya doğru hızlı bir şekilde yayılmasına neden olmuştur. Kontrolsüz ve plansız yayılma özellikle açık ve yeşil alanlar, tarım alanları, meralar ve orman alanları gibi ekolojik yaşam alanları üzerinde önemli baskı unsuru haline gelmiştir. Bu durum aynı zamanda kent yönetimi sorununu da ortaya çıkarmıştır. Kent yönetimi kentsel hizmetlerin sunumundan kent yerleşiminin sağlıklı bir şekilde planlanmasına kadar birçok konuyu içeren bir kavramdır. Kentlerin yönetimi katılımcı bir yaklaşımla uzun önemli planlama stratejilerinin oluşturulmasını ve şeffaf bir şekilde yönetilmesini zorunlu kılmaktadır. Bu çalışmada Bingöl İlinin kentleşme süreci ve yeşil alan planlaması ilişkisinin mevcut durumunu ortaya koymak, ekonomik, idari ve politik değişimler doğrultusunda kentleşme stratejilerini katılımcı yaklaşımla ele almak amaçlanmıştır. Araştırmada planlama yöntemi olarak kabul edilen SWOT (GZFT) ve TOWS (TFZG) analizi yöntemlerinden yararlanılmıştır. Farklı kurum temsilcilerinden oluşan 18 kişilik çalışma grubu ile yapılan SWOT analizinde Bingöl ilinin kentleşme-peyzaj ilişkisini etkileyen 62 içsel ve dışsal faktör belirlenmiştir. Bu faktörler amaçlı örnekleme yöntemi ile belirlenen 41 kişilik değerlendirme grubu tarafından 0-4 puan arasında puanlanmıştır. Puanlama sonucuna göre zayıf yönler 2,93-3,73, güçlü yönler 1,66-2,59, fırsatlar 1,95-3,07 ve tehditler ise 2,59-3,46 ortalama puan aralığında bulunmuştur. Elde edilen sonuçlar ve öncelikler doğrultusunda TOWS yöntemi kullanılarak araştırma alanı için sürdürülebilir kentleşme ve yeşil alan gelişim stratejileri önerilmiştir.