Climate change vulnerability assessment of Karşıyaka, İzmir

Cities are among the systems with the highest vulnerability to climate change impacts. These impacts greatly affect the population and physical infrastructure of the cities. Vulnerability assessment plays a significant role in identifying vulnerable areas to climate change in the city and developing adaptation solutions for these areas. This study aimed to determine and map the vulnerability level of Kar & scedil;& imath;yaka, & Idot;zmir on watershed scale to climate change hazards, high temperature, flood and sea level rise by using indicator based approach. In this context an indicator set was developed for each vulnerability component, exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, taking into account socio-economic, physical and ecological characteristics of the watershed, and then vulnerability was determined by calculations at the neighborhood scale. The results showed that urban areas in the inland had high exposure and sensitivity to. heat related hazards while coastal areas had high exposure and sensitivity to water related climate hazards. Almost two thirds of the residents lived under the risk of urban floods and extreme heat. The findings also indicated that sensitivity is lower on the inner parts of the study region where population density is low. Furthermore, coastal areas had the highest vulnerability even though they had high adaptive capacity. The findings are expected to be a useful tool for decision makers in increasing climate resilience and adaptive capacity.