Urban ecological security: A research on metropolitan municipalities in Turkey

The question of how to ensure his safety is one of the most important issues since the day man came to earth, as it is today. Today, the security of not only people, cities, states, but also the biosphere is under threat due to the ecological crisis. In this context, unlike in the past, today people are faced with the security problem created by their own hands. The epicenter of the security problem caused by ecological destruction is the cities. As a matter of fact, the main reason for the crisis is the deterioration of the urban ecological structure. In this study, ecological security is discussed over cities as a spatial scale. In this context, while evaluating the transformation process of security from the past to the present, it is emphasized that the construction of security, which has gained an ecological quality at the point reached today, should be started from the cities. In this direction, it is seen that the security problem experienced at the global level is actually an expanded version of the problem experienced in cities, and the starting point of the problem is; planning, infrastructure, transportation, food, water, energy and climate change parameters. Acting on the fact that the city is an ecosystem, this study presents the urban ecological security approach for global ecological security and the urban ecological security approach as an urban security model in the 21st century. The study consists of three parts. In the first chapter, the change in the understanding of security in general is explained. In this context, the process of change from the security of the state to the security of the ecosystem has been discussed. In the second part, urban ecological security, which is accepted as the spatial scale in the construction of ecological security; planning, infrastructure, transportation, food, water, energy, climate change elements. In the third part, the ecological security problems in the cities are discussed in the metropolitan municipalities in Turkey and an evaluation of the ecological security status of the metropolitan municipalities is made. As a result, it has been reached that cities constitute the center of the ecological security problem in the world and that metropolitan cities in Turkey are ecologically unsafe places. For this reason, urban policies should be formed within the framework of an ecologically based security approach in order to make cities safe. Keywords: Security, Urban, Urbanization, Ecology, Ecological Security