Determination of the effects of recreational activities on ecosystem components and their changes with distance: The case of yedigöller National Park

Recreational activities in protected areas are increasing day by day in the world and in our country. National parks are also protected areas and have high resource values for tourism and recreation. Although the literature review shows that there are studies based on limited field observation data that try to determine the effects of recreation, there are no studies that aim to determine the impact zones of different recreational activities. The aim of the study is to determine the changes in ecosystem components depending on the types of recreational activities in Yedigöller National Park, which has sensitive ecosystems, to make ecological impact zoning depending on the changes, and to determine impact management decisions to ensure sustainable tourism and quality recreation. The results of the study will provide a preventive, early forecasting opportunity for improving landscape management in the context of the Green Deal and provide a decision support system for monitoring and management of protected areas within forests. For this purpose, the recreation opportunity class distances used by Aşıkkutlu (2013) in his study were used. According to this study, five different zones of different widths were considered depending on the intensity of construction and the type of recreational use in the area. Samples were taken from 3 randomly selected points in 20m*20m areas from all zones in the camping area, picnic area, bungolov (residential) area, paved driveway and pathway areas. Using observation forms, the current status of the resource values of the area has been determined. In addition, user density depending on the type of recreational use was also observed. These studies were carried out in the field for 1 year depending on the seasons. The pressures of the activities on vegetation and soil were determined according to the scores obtained from field observation forms. Observation forms were filled in the activity areas and the status analysis of ecosystem components was made according to the scores. Analysis of variance was applied to determine the differences of all data obtained according to zones and uses, and Tukey analysis was used to interpret the difference. As a result of the findings, the effects of recreational activity types were zoned and compared with the opportunity class distances used by Aşıkkutlu (2013) in his study. According to the results of the Tukey test comparing the averages of the form evaluation score, the types of use that most negatively affect the ecological indicators are construction and picnic uses. Management decisions appropriate to the impact zones were determined. Keywords: Ecosystem, Recreation ecology, Recreational opportunity spectrum, Soil, Vegetation