The role of geographical information systems in building a devolopment model in the nuts II regions: The approach of Lucis model

In the 20th century, the rapid developments in science and technology caused human beings live fast and accordingly that brought forth an uncompensated pollution. With the increase in population and abundance of resources a great waste started. Heavy damage from the World War I and II, devastating effects of used chemical weapons on human and nature led humanity to protect natural resources and environment and so this issue became the priority of development plans. Istanbul –a worldwide metropolitan city, experienced this course and faced uncontrollable and distorted urbanization with heavy migration flow from 1950s. As in all over the world, in consequence of increasing population for providing the balanced use of the sources and controlled growing in Turkey, planning studies have gained great momentum. However, development-centered efforts have some major issues in Turkey. Lacking the creation of necessary knowledge base for determining development strategies is one of the leading problems. while determining the regional development strategies, not analyzing the site-specific conditions, geographical, cultural, social and historical characteristics of the regions and determining similar strategies regarding the region make difficult that people in the region establish, adopt and exercise desirable development strategies. A multi-perspective and comprehensive study is required to build the development model. The development should exactly be human-centered and the human is surely in connection with space. To establish the connection between human-being and space properly is possible with planning. To reach a proper planning could only be possible with a proper interpreting the reliable information by analyzing. Geographic information systems to be able to reach these goals, designed to solve complex planning and management problems and including involving, managing, processing, analyzing, modelling and imagening the position-determined data in the space and defined as hardware, software and methods system have become prominent one more time. In this study, these have practically been displayed that GIS tools could be utilized for planning and make contribution for determining. Development is a comprehensive subject having social, economic and spatial dimensions. When studying the spatial dimension of development it is witnessed that each administative decision definitely leads either positive or negative results. Therefore the need for establishing mechanisms which will manipulate the decision-makers and make them take the most appropriate decision has become appearent. Notably the metropolis have to make short term plans for the next 3-5 years and long term plans for the next 40-50 years to overcome issues such as immigration, transportation, environment etc. Making prediction for the future and planning a city with this prediction definitely difficult and risky. It is possible to make such prediction with modelling primarily the current urban settlement and than future urban distribution. Istanbul is one of the world's most important metropolitans particularly with its geo-strategic location and diversity of economic opportunities. Although a structure to strengthen joint decision-making process, spatial planning and implementation in places were anticipated in the 10th National Development Plan, still dozens of institutions in Istanbul have the authority of planning on different scales and matters. While conflicts on land use occur due to the plans prepared in accordance with each institution's own right, the city with a rapidly increasing population is led towards a dead end through insufficient housing stock which has become even more desperate with macro projects such as Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge and The Canal Istanbul. This trend primarily has become a threat to natural habitats such as sites, watershed protection areas, agricultural areas, and especially to the northern forests. In this dissertation, LUCIS (Land Use Conflict Identification Strategy) model has been used to detect the optimal use of land considering the conflicts of plans which different institutions developed. LUCIS model has been used to identify the most suitable land-use, especially in developing countries to find probable solutions against land-use conflicts. The model enables new tools for land-use suitability analysis and produces a spatial representation of probable conflicts of future land use distribution. LUCIS Model that uses Model Builder interface existing in ArcGIS which is Geographical Information System (GIS) software is used in the study. Meaningful and accessible data which is related with residential, agricultural and protected areas, expressing the relations of humanbeing with space and classifying land usage on a broad level, have been used for the model to work better. In the model; objectives, goals and strategies were established, and physically and economically optimal areas have been identified with the help of GIS and compared to the current areas to propose alternative use areas. Via the proposed development model it is expected to prevent the maluse of the lands which is the biggest problem of the cities in Turkey. With this model, sustainable urban development and natural conservation will be balanced. Besides, this study shows that data to be evaluated rapidly, efficiently and correctly on the preparation of the Regional Plans which can be identified as the development agencies and which means by using GIS on development planning, and also shows that alternative solution channels can be found out by considering many factors at the same time. In this study, the minimum required data for establishing a model geographical information system and analyses which could be used by GIS have been presented clearly. Although the so called data and analyses are for environmental planning these will provide important source for other fields of the study. As a result of analysis made for determining the dispute area in this study, land values have been divided into 27 different combination. When these combinations are examined it is determined that one of the categories among Settlement, Protection and Agriculture is dominant so that the area having no dispute corresponds to 81,5% of the whole area of Istanbul and area having dispute corresponds to 18,5% of the study area. Therefore, the 18,5% of area having land use dispute has great importance on managing future land use. As a result of this study, in addition to the current protection zones such as northern forests, watersheds, and semi-vegetation zones; 63,640 hectares of area should be under protection. These zones should be protected in order to preserve water and fresh air resources of the city. The fact that Istanbul is geo-strategically important and has variable economical availabilities and so it is an attractive center, and the fast expansion of settlement areas that multiplied 26 times from 1995 to 2014 are the greatest threat to protection zones. Avoiding such threats will be possible only by a good planning. And a good plan is just possible by a decision support mechanism fed with correct and updatable information sources. As in this study, in planning studies to be done; protection suitability analysis, agricultural suitability analysis and settlement suitability analysis will be evaluated together and a reliable decision support system will be established for a healthier future planning. Regarding results of this and similar scientific studies, actions need to be done considering that development taking into consideration of the natural resources and environment is prior to pure economic development. And therewithal, these areas that are heartland of Istanbul need to be expanded as seen in the result of this study. While preparing plans in every scale and making development-oriented studies, this fact should be considered. To make Istanbul a city with an ease of settling in and bustling leisure and social activites which also has a sustainable environment, LUCIS and similar models is operational for orienting unrestrained increase in the demand for residential districts toward appropriate areas. This is necessary and possible. Otherwise, as it is seen in the results of this study, ever-increasing residential areas will repress the watersheds, agricultural lands and forestery areas which are the crucial lifeblood of the city.