Spatial and temporal dynamics of land use pattern response to urbanization in Kastamonu

This study analyses the spatial and temporal changes in land use and land cover patterns in a typical mountain forest area in Kastamonu regional directorate of forestry in the western part of Turkey. The area was investigated by evaluating the temporal changes of spatial structure of forest conditions through spatial analysis of forest cover type maps from 1984-2007 using GIS and FRAGSTATS (TM). Urban settlements account for only two percent of the Earth's land surface. However, over half of the world's population resides in cities (United Nations, 2001). The quantitative evidences presented here showed that there were drastic changes in the temporal and spatial dynamics of land use/land cover. As an overall change between 1987 and 2000, there was a net increase of 28.96% in total settlement areas. On one hand, forest areas increased to 111 466 ha and settlement areas increased to 1 440 ha, while on the other hand, open areas decreased to 112 888 ha. This is partially due to migration of rural population in Kastamonu regional directorate of forestry. In terms of spatial configuration, analysis of the metrics revealed that landscape structure in study area had changed substantially over the 13-year study period, resulting in fragmentation of the landscape as indicated by the small patch numbers and the large mean patch sizes due to immigration of rural population to urban population.