Monitoring of land use changes on the wetlands within scope land degradation neutrality in Turkey

Wetlands is important for main services (such as food, freshwater, genetic material), regulatory services (such as climate, flow regime, erosion, natural disaster, pollination,), cultural services (such as recreation, aesthetics, education) and supporting services ( such as soil formation, nutrient cycle). The greatest threat to wetlands is the destruction and reduction of wetlands. Therefore, monitoring studies are important for wetland management and policies. The purpose of the thesis is to monitor the changes in the land cover/use in Turkey's official national and international wetlands since 2000 , to make the risk assessment of wetlands for land degradation neutrality (LDN), to determine the land cover/use changes and to reach the necessary data for planning. Collect earth (CE) software was used in the study. Collect Earth first used by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is a multi-purpose land monitoring software tool. The study was carried out in a total number of 93 wetlands, according to the data obtained from the Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, General Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks as of 2020. Within the scope of the thesis study, studies were carried out on 14245 plot areas and the results were interpolated to the whole area. According to the results of the study, it has been determined that a large part of Turkey's wetlands (35.38%) is used as Cropland. : 38.6% of Ramsar areas are classified as Cropland and 1.7% as Settlement Areas. It has been determined that the areas of 'Forest land', 'Cropland', 'Settlements' and 'Other land' classes in Turkey's wetlands between the years 2000-2022 have increased, and the 'wetlands' class area has decreased by 3629.28 ha. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that there was land degradation in 40991.47 hectares and land improvement in 25683.03 hectares.