THE IMPORTANCE OF WATERSHED CHARACTERISTICS IN INTEGRATED WATERSHED MANAGEMENT (A CASE OF GOKDERE WATERSHED, TURKEY)

Gokdere watershed, chosen as research area, is an interesting place with its characteristics, such as its rich flora, water and forest resources, socio-economic structure, trans-humance culture, recreation potential and ecological features. The total area of Gokdere watershed is 7243 ha. Each land-use/land-cover (LULC) type (forest, rangeland, agriculture, recreation, habitation, tourism etc.) is present there, and makes it a rich source to study. On the natural sources of the watershed, anthropogenic effects are intensely observed. In the planning of the integrated watershed management (IWM), ecological, economic and demographic structures were dealt with inseparably. With this aim, the maps that belong to the watershed were analyzed via Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and its socio-economic structure, LULC types, population characteristics, climate and flora types were examined. The demographic structure and the land-use/land-cover changes (LULCC) were temporally investigated. While 1015 people lived in the villages and plateaus of Gokdere watershed in 1955, this number declined to 272 in 2007. In order to determine the effects of LULCC on the hydro-physical soil properties, soil samplings on different adjacent land-use areas from the depth of 0-15 cm were taken, and analyzed in the laboratory. According to the soil analysis, forest soils showed superior hydro-physical structure, a distinction was made among LULC types statistically. Amount of organic matter is higher in the soils of forest area. Therefore, values of available water and hydraulic conductivity are high, and value of bulk density is low. Infiltration capacity is the highest in the soils of agricultural areas which have been cultivated for a long time. It was found that the watershed suffers from perpetual migration; agricultural and rangelands turned into forests in time, and there is a decrease in sheep population, and cattle husbandry is being carried out under hard circumstances. Marginal agriculture lands are being used for dry farming and there are difficulties in storing and marketing agricultural products. According to LULC 51 year period of time of the water shed, 7% increase in fertile and degraded forest areas, 10% decrease in forest openings known as forest soil was observed. In the forward planning of the watershed, its edaphic, climatic, biotic and demographic characteristics should be certainly taken into consideration. Migration, infrastructure problems, uncontrolled recreative activities and wrong grazing practice affect the natural source potential negatively.