A comparative analysis in the context of urban resilience parameters against climate change: TR42 Region

Cities have been in a constant state of change and development throughout history, at the same time they have encountered a great deal of problems. Cities need to be resilient against the problems they face and ensure their persistence. One of the most significant challenges facing cities today is climate change. This thesis aims to present performance parameters for urban resilience against climate change and to perform a comparative analysis. In this context, concepts were determined by literature review and the determined concepts were made measurable with the operationalization method. With this method, the themes and subheadings of society, management, economy, environment and infrastructure were specified. The parameters under the determined subheadings were measured with Cronbach's Alpha reliability analysis for statistical consistency and reliability and then they were applied to the provinces of Kocaeli, Sakarya, Düzce, Bolu and Yalova in the TR42 Region. According to the obtained results, provinces Kocaeli, Sakarya, Düzce, Bolu, Bursa as TR42 Region, exhibit a shared vulnerability and risk status with respect to climate change under the subheadings of demography, due to population ageing; health, due to declines in infrastructure relative to the existing population; agriculture and forestry, due to decreases in seedling and sapling production as well as reductions in afforested areas; biodiversity, due to the critical number of threatened taxa; energy, due to increases in industrial activity and per capita total electricity consumption; and sanitation, due to a decline in the total capacity of wastewater treatment facilities relative to the population. In addition, due to factors such as time constraints, content limitations, and reliability coefficients, not all parameters can be utilized in the evaluation process. Therefore, it is recommended to identify a greater number of performance parameters with high reliability coefficients at the provincial and annual levels. Within the governance theme, improvements are suggested in documentation, participatory practices, disaster preparedness and smart applications; within the environmental theme, the development of climate performance parameters and the establishment of platforms that enable coordinated actions to address shared challenges are recommended. The results obtained are expected to be utilized by public institutions, municipalities, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and policymakers.