THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOREST DISTURBANCE IN TURKEY

Abstract

As well as in entire world, the forests are under significant and various risks in Turkey. All the threats towards the existence and health of forests are of biotic or abiotic characteristics. Especially due to the rapid population growth and increased need of new residential areas in recent years, the pressure of humans on forestlands and the increases in climate extremities bring the most significant threats ever. The climate change occur-ring under the effects of gases released to the atmo-sphere significantly affects the forests. Because of these alterations, the disturbances on forests to date increased in severity and frequency. The climate changes lead to alterations in level and structure of the direct and indirect disturbances on the forests. Among the factors damaging the forests in Turkey, forest fires and epidemic insects share the first ranks. In this study, where the effects of drought in forestlands on forest fire and insect disturbances, the SPEI drought index and General Directorate of Forestry's data were utilized. According to the results of regression test performed in this study, it is seen that there are relationships of SPEI with burned areas that can be expressed with second-order equation and with insect disturbance that can be expressed with first-order equation.