Abstract:

In today's world geography, the migration from rural area to urban areas continues and the increasing urban population causes vertical and horizontal urban growth. Many factors, such as spatial growth of cities due to population growth, orientation of high level income group towards outskirts of cities, large scale mass housing projects, and higher education facilities attached to cities, realization of large scale public investments because of low land cost cause urban sprawl. In the historical process, the urban settlements have been shaped by a variety of factors such as the needs of the society, the security, the natural environment, the proximity to the agricultural areas, the proximity to the water bodies and the landscape. At the present case, cities are widening towards unsuitable areas. It is important to take control of expansion of cities and to canalize it towards the most appropriate sites. Similar to other cities in Turkey, orientation of urban expansion in Kırklareli city is a necessity for sustainable urban development. The purpose of the study is to determine the most suitable new development areas by using weighted overlay method considering the slope, aspect, land use, soil classes, erosion status, geological structure, proximity to natural drainage systems, proximity to transportation connections, proximity to urban facilities and urban settled area criteria. In the study Geographic Information Systems technology was used. The dataset was overlaid predominantly and the settlement suitability level was determined according to the scores of the each cells.

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