Coastal land degradation and character assessment of Southern Black Sea landscape

• Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) on Southern Black Sea coastal city was implemented.
• Coastal urbanization related landscape fragmentation was evaluated.
• Character formation of Rize City was found under influence of coppice cover and tea plantation.
• Character assessment necessity was stressed in terms of coastal management and urban planning.

The developing economies have negatively affected sustainability of natural resources. Increasing environmental pollution, global climate change and deforestation are some examples for such effects. Therefore, some leading countries seek for a solution to overcome these problems. Within this frame, “European Landscape Convention” which is also signed by Turkey, foresees to describe and characterize of landscapes in Pan-European level by applying protection and promotion principals for management and planning the landscapes in a sustainable way. Thus, there is an urgent need to describe and characterize our available national landscapes in any scale and resolution. In this study, landscape character assessment for the city center of Rize and adjacent rural vicinity was investigated. The study area is famous for cultivation of industrial plant “CameliaSinensis” and evidently under severe usage as agricultural fields. The results of the study revealed that the area can be described by 5 different landscape characters and 544 landscape units. Spatial analysis carried out in precisely built geo-database showed that the area is under influence of two main vegetation types which are tea plantation areas and coppice cover. Moreover, the study area is highly fragmented due to triple effects; “urbanization”, “inheritance law” and “natural land cover alteration”.