An analytic model proposal for ecological planning

Highly encountered by the humankind since 1970's, environmental problems have played an important part in the creation of new approaches and tools in planning as with many other disciplines. Being an approach that considers, within this frame, the changing value system of the humankind and the acts of humankind to use the setting as directed by the needs in order to ensure the sustainability of natural values, and that proposes tools for such an understanding, Ecological Planning has been placed in the planning literature recently with an increasing importance. Another aspect that is attached much importance in line with the said issue is to be able to produce the tools that can lead the plan decisions, integrate the elements of ecosystem into the evaluation process in a systematic and objective manner. Induced by this requirement, an analytic model consisting of the components "Analytic Hierarchy Process" and "Suitability Analysis" has been applied in order to test the suitability of settlement at Ömerli Watershed which was relatively intact in 1970, and the results obtained have been compared within the framework of current situation and environmental problems. In this connection, the paper studies the human - nature relationship, the philosophical roots of this relationship and its meaning from different points and in different situations as well as the development of ecological approach in environmental sciences and planning within the historical progress in the second section, elements, principles and types of ecosystems in the thirth section, and also studies human activities and environmental problems arising therefrom, the types of these problems, ecological planning as a means of solution to environmental problems, the importance of such planning approach, and the points where it differs from other approaches in the fourth section, the evaluation methods used in planning, and emphasizes the positive and negative aspects of these methods in measuring ecosystem elements in the fifth section, considers ecosystem elements in a measurable way for use in the analytic model in the sixth section, after the formulation of hypothesis and method description which is summarized in the seventh section presents a field study covering the details of the application of the proposed method and the evaluation of Ömerli Watershed in 1 970 vising this methodin the eighth section, summarizes the environmental problems currently experienced at the Basin, and evaluates the results and findings obtained in the last section.Keywords: Ecological Planning, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Suitability Analysis, Ömerli Watershed.