Eskişehir, Turkey

Contact the Eskişehir study site team

2010-11-25T16:05:30Z

Eskişehir Osmangazi University coordinates both the Karapinar and Eskişehir study sites.

Institute full name:	Eskişehir Osmangazi University
Institute acronym:	ESOGU
Institute profile:	Eskişehir Osmangazi University (ESOGU) is a state university that was initially founded as Medical & Engineering Faculties in 1970. Currently, ESOGU has 5 campuses including 7 faculties which offer 25 different undergraduate and 10 associate degree programs in 3 vocational schools. Having more than 14,000 students and the commitment to the highest standards in teaching and research, ESOGU has become one of the leading universities in the Central Anatolian region of Turkey. International and European cooperation play an essential role in ESOGU's strategic development plan. ESOGU is willing to extend the number of our partners for the academic year 2005/2006, in both student and staff mobility. Large financial support by the Comission of Scientific Research of the university in recent years is particularly encouraging the scientific avtivities.Department of Geological Engineering is probably the most energetic division with respect to international papers published and the national and international projects realized in the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture. Main subjects of the projects range from monitoring the surface and running water pollution to morpho-tectonic evolution of certain tectonically active areas of the central and western Anatolia. The department has organized three national symposiums on the issues of geomorphology, active tectonics and geochemistry in the last four years.
Website	www.ogu.edu.tr
Address	Eskişehir Osmangazi University Meşelik Kampüsü 26480 Eskişehir Turkey Fax: +90 222 239 36 13
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Involved personnel

Name	Contact details	Key qualifications	Photo
Assoc. Prof. Faruk Ocakoglu	focak@ogu.edu.tr	Coordination or involvement of many national and several international projects; surface degradation processes, sediment production and their turning into rock, assessment of palaeoenvironmens of sedimentary rocks, short and long term climatic changes and their records in stratigraphic record; fluvial geomorphology; morphotectonics.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Candan Gokceoglu		Engineering geologist; expert on rock mechanics, slope stability and landslide behaviour; spatial analysts, Physical aspect of soil development; GIS and execution of scenario analysis.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harun Sonmez		Expert of rock mechanics; software developer on surface processes such as landslide, runoff, erosion; land use and management with expertise on GIS
Assis. Prof. Dr. Şebnem Düzgün		Spatial statistics in GIS and its applications, spatial data analysis and GIS, spatial data mining, modelling spatial uncertainty, landslide risk assessment and management, use of geographical information systems (GIS) in landslide risk assessment, assessment and management of rainfall-induced landslides, probabilistic modelling of rock slopes, use of probabilistic methods in rock engineering, uncertainty modelling in geotechnical engineering, natural hazard risk assessment.
Assis. Prof. Dr. Halil Güngör		Soil development and erosion; irrigation techniques, mitigation of erosion; expertise on laboratory and field soil tests
Geologist (MSc) Sanem Acıkalın		Physical and chemical aspects of soil formation; determination and description of soil fine fraction; fluvial geomorphology; grain size characterization of soil; GIS-based modeling of erosion
Geologist (MSc) Mutlu Gürler		Land management, geological monuments and related national and international laws.
Assis. Prof. Dr. Atilla Ocak		Plant ecology, Mediterranean vegetation; development of long term sustainability plans regarding the plant ecology
Asist. Prof. Dr. Fatime Güneş		Poverty, women studies, gender issues, application of statistics in social sciences.
Asist. Prof. Dr. İnci Tolay		Expertise in soil science, especially soil classification, productivity and fertilisation.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şükran Şahin		Classification and determination of land use types, their dependence to socioeconomic factors, land amelioration, erosion susceptibility mapping
Assis. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Zengin		Expert on soil productivity and degradation, environmental pollution and water quality.
Geologist (MSc) Gonca Gürler		Expertise in GIS based modelling, geostatistics, spatial data analysis, preservation of geological monuments.
Dr. Zehra AYTAC		Adaptation of oil crops under semiarid conditions; medicinal and aromatic plants
Geologist Osman Kir		Physical aspects of soil formation; Physical analysis of soil samples, classification of land use and GIS based modelling of soil erosion
Geologist Celal Erayik		Expertise in GIS based modelling, Spatial data analysis, Modelling spatial uncertainty

Study site location & description

2007-07-12T10:36:24Z

The Eskişehir study site is located in north western Turkey, and centred just to the north west of the city of Eskişehir.

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This area has been strongly influenced by the heavily populated Eskişehir settlement which is significant both from the viewpoints of agri¬cultural activity and industrial complexes. In coming years, economic significance of the Eskişehir area is anticipated to increase as the share of agriculture and industrial investments rise in the country. The sensitivity to erosion by water of extensive agricultural areas and the expected strong droughts as well as the heavy urbanization and the dependence of agriculture on increasingly polluted surface and groundwater irrigation in places necessitate an integrated approach that overlaps with the purpose of the DESIRE initiative, in order to provide a sustainable development in the region.

More details ... read the full study site description and an overview of all sites
	Read full study site description
»Comparative overview of all study sites

Stakeholders and their sustainability goals

2011-11-08T14:07:53Z

The area and people
Land use in the Eskisehir Basin is unirrigated cereals, meadows, irrigated sugarbeet and sunflower and fruit cultivation. The area is 4th among the national league with respect to agricultural production per person.

Added value of DESIRE for stakeholders
Added value of DESIRE for stakeholders in the SS is the participatory approach. There is a low level of contact between stakeholders. Organization is poor and the workshops are a help to connect farmers with farmers and farmers with researchers. In the beginning of the workshop people did not see an added value of DESIRE.

There is a gender problem; women do not join workshops. One should work through village elders. People traditionally gather and discuss in coffee houses and tea houses. Could this be used to discuss degradation and land use?

Study site stakeholders workshops
3-day stakeholder workshops were organized. On the 3rd day the GO’s and NGOs were invited to participate. Half of them left during the day. Farmers are reached by the government through workshops that are advertised in local media such as TV and radio. Farmers complain that the market prices are too high, while the price at which products are bought by middlemen is low.

Limitations for spontaneous implementation of soil and water conservation practices
A limitation to the spontaneous adaption of new methods are investment costs and low level of contact between stakeholders limiting exchange.

Stakeholder groups

Provincial Division of the State Water Affairs: The local branch of the primary executive state agency for elimination of adverse effects of Turkey’s surface and groundwater and putting them in public utilization in various ways such as hydropower, irrigation, domestic and industrial use. This institution is passively involved in DESIRE since it previously constructed the Keskin Dam in the study site area.
Anatolian Agricultural Research Center: A governmental organization conducting various research activities including production of drought resistant new species, amelioration of meadows etc.
Provincial Special Management: The older General Directorate of Rural Services, now bound directly to local governor. It is expected normally to distribute infrastructure services such as road and aqueduct building or repair, etc.
Provincial Directorate for the Environment and Forestry: Local state branch responsible for reforestation and environmental rehabilitation and protection.
Soil and Water Research Institute, Eskisehir Branch: Branch of an organization (The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Service) aiming at the development, conservation or suitable exploitation of the soil and water resources in the Eskisehir region. This institute previously made some research projects in relation to various aspects of land degradation in Eskisehir regions.
Eskisehir Osmangazi University, Faculty of Agriculture: As a state university, this organization realises both education (undergraduate and MSc) and researches on productivity and land degradation issues.
TEMA Eskisehir Branch: A branch of Turkish NGO for combating soil erosion, for restoration and protection of natural habitats.
Foundation For The Reinforcement of the General Directorate of National Parks and Game-Wild Life : A Turkish NGO focused on the protection of environment with its wild life.
UNCCD National Focal point: The national connection point against desertification founded under the Research, planning and co-ordination board of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.
Tepebasi Municipality: Decision-maker and execution authority within the municipality boundary with respect to land management and related issues. Since the majority of the study site included within the municipality with the latest local legislative rearrangements, this organization has ultimate significance.
Local Irrigation Unions: The union of villagers (end-users) for provision of surface and ground waters to their farms.
Local Farmer Unions: The union of villagers for increasing the productivity of soil and and crop quality.
Eskisehir Agricultural Credit Cooperation: An NGO that provides various agricultural credits to farmers.

Sustainability goals

The mountain villages (i.e. Uludere and Egriöz villages) of the study site still have significant number of cattle that frequents the pasturelands. For those stakeholders, increasing biological diversity as well as the amount of fodder production in pasturelands is the basic sustainability goal.

Dry croplands which are generally slightly to highly sloping actually undergo significant water erosion though neither farmer nor state organizations are financially capable of taking protective or mitigation measures. But they rather think of preserving or improvement of soil fertility as the major sustainability goal. For this reason they mostly prefer chemical fertilizers instead of mid-to long term soil preservation measures. Enlargement of forest cover and their maintenance and protection are viewed as fundamental sustainability goals by both farmers and state organizations. Lastly, optimum use of groundwater by any means in the irrigated croplands of the Keskin and Yukarisögütönü villages are adopted as principal sustainability goal by farmers of these villages.

The table shows the sustainability goals that were identified for the Eskişehir area.

Goal 1	Increasing biological diversity
Goal 2	Improving productivity of fodder production on pasture lands
Goal 3	Conservation and improvement of soil fertility
Goal 4	Forest cover increase and maintenance
Goal 5	Efficient use of ground water sources

Source: information from governmental organizations, farmer unions and expert estimate of the study site leader

More details ...

»Stakeholders & their sustainability goals - overview

Drivers, policies and laws

2011-11-08T14:14:36Z

The reasons for desertification and land degradation occurring can be environmental (for example due to the climate or soil conditions), economic, due to the actions of people or, most often, due to a combination of factors. The resulting degradation may be temporary or permanent.

To help understand this complex picture it can be helpful to think in terms the dominant socio-economic and environmental forces that are driving the process of land degradation. These place pressures on the land which have particular impacts. Human society may have already made responses to those impacts, or may have knowledge about how they could respond. Decisions about which responses to make may also be governed by a range of international, national or local policy regulations and agreements.

In the Eskişehir study site, the same stakeholder workshop and questionnaires that were used to identify existing and potential response strategies (»Identifying strategies: Stakeholder workshop 1) also discussed and identified these driving forces; pressures; impacts; and the policy and regulation environment. This information was then used to inform the choice of »Field experiments, the scenarios used in »Simulated biophysical impact of remediation strategies and their financial viability, and context for the study site-specific »Policy brief recommendations.

Select main driver

Socio-economic drivers
Environmental drivers
Pressures
Impacts
Responses
Policies

Gender-related issues

2011-03-03T14:08:11Z

More details ... download the poster
	Gender-related issues: Eskişehir [94 kB]

Land degradation and conservation maps

2009-06-08T12:56:43Z

The WOCAT tool for mapping land degradation and sustainable land management has been used in the Eskişehir study site. Using the tool, an interdisciplinary team of specialists has recorded observations of land degradation, sustainable land management and recommendations for further prevention or mitigation on a land use base map.

Select map type

Comments

Map version: 4Oct11

More details ...

»Assessment and mapping methodology; summary results from all study sites

Desertification risk assessment maps

2011-11-08T14:15:14Z

Source: extracted from Karavitis, C., Kosmas, C. et al. (submitted article) An expert system towards assessing desertification risk using indicators. Environmental Management

In the Eskişehir study site, the main processes or causes of desertification were

water erosion in forests,
water erosion in agricultural areas and
water erosion in pastures & shrubs.

For these processes, the Desertification Risk Assessment Tool processed 207 indicators in 13 map units. The indicator values were obtained from the WOCAT database and used as input to the Assessment Tool. The procedure was applied for all the map units of the Eskişehir study site and the DRI values calculated are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Description of desertification risk

The DRI values were mapped for each of the 13 polygons (Map 1).


Map 1: Desertification risk index (DRI)	Map 2: Degree of land degradation (as assessed using the WOCAT mapping method)

The DRI map was compared with WOCAT QM of the study site (Map 2). It was noted that the degree of degradation and the effectiveness of the conservation measures on the WOCAT map corresponded closely enough to the DRI values for the same areas. The highest degree of degradation and the lowest effectiveness of the conservation measures matchedthe highest values of DRI.

More details ... about the use of the Desertification Risk Assessment Tool to calculate the Desertification Risk Index (DRI)

»Using the Desertification Risk Assessment Tool

Evaluating the desertification risk assessment tool with local experimental results

2013-09-30T12:13:38Z

Author: Victor Jetten

Introduction
The hill slope areas near Eskişehir suffer from soil erosion. The area is semi-arid, soils are shallow, stony and organic matter content is low. Land use is rainfed wheat with occasional fallow periods. Slopes range from 10 to 20%. Late spring and early summer rainfalls are particularly erosive (400 mm annual rainfall with a marked dry season). Experiments were carried out that interrupt the runoff and help increase infiltration and thereby increasing soil moisture storage (wicker fences as sediment traps and contour ploughing). The overall objective is to decrease surface runoff and to reduce soil losses. Land abandonment in the area occurs because of urban migration.

Desertification indices
Desertification expresses itself as water erosion and possibly tillage erosion. Both get a rating of moderate with a rating of 2.82 and 2.91 respectively. The measures are difficult to implement. The wicker fences will cause terraces to be formed gradually. Implementing terraces only decreased the water erosion risk only slightly to 2.64.

Implementing a maximum interruption of runoff as a result of contour ploughing decreases water erosion risk to 2.66.

Implementing both terraces and contour ploughing decreases the erosion risk to low: 2.48.

Wheat production on slopes without conservation measures

Conclusions
The general moderate water erosion risk is correct for the area where erosion is present but not excessive. The precise experimental measures (contour ploughing and wicker fences) could not be implemented but when translated to interruption of runoff and terracing give a small result. In reality the result was observed ones where the treated field had no erosion while the adjacent fuield did have erosion. Decreased runoff also expressed itself as a higher infiltration and increased water availability. This link is not made in the assessment tool (as it is built on correlation, not on process relations).

More details ... general conclusions and results from other study sites

»Evaluating the Desertification Risk Assessment Tool with experimental results

Identifying strategies: Stakeholder Workshop 1

2008-10-14T17:23:18Z

The results of the first DESIRE stakeholder workshop, held in Eskişehir, Turkey, January 22-23-25, 2008.

Techniques currently applied

Crop rotation
Fodder crop production
Tree planting

Potential technqiues

Terracing
Mulching
Improving grassland
Tillage perpendicular to slope
Check dams
Vegetation strips
Drip irrigation

Overall strategy

To increase soil fertility (through crop rotation, mulching and tree planting)

To limit water loss (through drip irrigation and improving grassland)

To prevent water and soil loss by erosion (through terracing and check dams)

Main conclusion

Strengths

High level of motivation of local stakeholders
Good collaboration of external stakeholders
High level of awareness of local stakeholders

Weaknesses

Financial aids
Loose contact between local stakeholders and external stakeholders
Gender problem

More details ... download the full report and poster and see results and general conclusions from other study sites
	WP3.1 Stakeholder Workshop 1: Eskisehir (report) 932.41 kB
	WP3.1 Stakeholder Workshop 1: Eskisehir (results poster) 159.68 kB
»Identifying strategies: Stakeholder Workshop 1 methodology and summary results from all study sites

Evaluating strategies: technologies and approaches documented

2011-02-22T13:44:03Z

Stakeholder Workshop 1 identified a number of existing or potential strategies to combat desertification and land degradation in the Eskişehir study site. In the months following the workshop these strategies (technologies or approaches) were documented and evaluated in a structured and standardised way and their descriptions were entered in the WOCAT Technologies and Approaches databases in order to share the information with other DESIRE sites as well as globally.

For details of all Technologies and Approaches documented in the WOCAT Database (from the DESIRE study sites and from other sites worldwide), see

For those relating to this study site, click on the Name of technology or Name of approach to go directly to the descriptions in the database.

WOCAT Technologies Database

Country	Code	Name of technology	Author
Turkey	TUR04	»Fodder crop production	Tolay Inci, Eskisehi Osmangazi University, Faculty of Agriculture

WOCAT Approaches Database

Country	Code	Name of approach	Author
Turkey	TUR04	»Fodder crops production	Tolay Inci, Eskisehir Osmangazi University, Faculty of Agriculture