The investigation of the relationship between climate change and forest fires in Türkiye: A case study of the Mediterranean Region

In the thesis study, the relationship between forest fires and climate change in the provinces of Antalya, Adana, Isparta, Burdur, Osmaniye, Mersin and Hatay in the Mediterranean Region was examined. In this study, first, a literature review was conducted on topics such as climate change, the causes and effects of climate change, the greenhouse gas effect, disasters, and the relationship between climate change and forest fires was examined. Subsequently, the relationship between forest fires, one of the types of disasters, and climate change was examined. In this thesis study, data on the number of forest fires and burned areas were received from the General Directorate of Forestry. Data related to climate parameters (temperature, humidity, wind speed, number of rainy days) were obtained from the General Directorate of Meteorology. Correlation and regression analyzes were carried out with the IBM SPSS 23.0 program to determine the relationship between the number of forest fires occurring in the provinces of the study area and meteorological parameters. According to the analysis results; the number of forest fires occurring due to natural causes has a statistically significant relationship with wind speed in Antalya province, temperature in Isparta, and the number of rainy days in Burdur and Osmaniye.