Ecological Memory and Socio-Ecological Resilience Approach Within the Scope of Muğla Wildfires

Abstract

The climate change crisis stemming from anthropogenic reasons has triggered severe weather events and disasters all over the world in recent years. In this context, the main purpose of the paper is to reveal the importance of ecological memory in the face of the wildfires threatening our living spaces and taking place between 29 July-12 August 2021 throughout Muğla Province, and to divulge basic strategies for the future of the region by questioning the resilience of ecosystem. The damage caused by wildfires are determined by using satellite images and remote sensing methods in GIS. Accordingly, the borders of burned areas were determined by using mainly remote sensing data according to the degree of burn severity on the basis of NBR. In turn, these borders were overlapped with CLC data and administrative borders at different scales for determination of the land cover types of the burned areas and the urban areas affected. Subsequently, the actual surface areas of the burned regions were calculated by using SRTM GL1 satellite images. The results show that not only forest assets, but also agricultural areas, production areas, mining areas, urban transportation network and residential areas were damaged by the wildfires. Although burned areas can be calculated by using remote sensing methods as done in this study, exact delimitation of fire zones and precise distribution of the burned areas according to land cover types also require in-situ work. Hence, the scope of the paper doesn’t cover these issues that can only be addressed by future studies. Overall, the paper proposes a framework for questioning the socio-ecological resilience of the ecosystem in the upcoming period of the disasters that threaten our living spaces, and formulates a set of strategies for spatial planning by employing a socio-ecological approach for increasing the resilience of habitats by revealing ecological memory.