The seminar is a collaboration among Departments of Sustainable Cities and Communities and Landscape Planning of the University of Kassel and Dep. of City and Regional Planning of the Karadeniz Technical University in Turkey. It is an international and interdisciplinary collaboration between city and landscape planners both from Turkey and Germany.
The purpose of the seminar is to explore the convergence of Urban and Regional Planning and Landscape Planning tools in a comparative study of two cases in Kastamonu/Turkey and Kassel/Germany.
During the seminar, both urban planning and landscape planning regulatory framework in both countries will be analyzed and discussed in order to identify gaps and potentials for transdisciplinary solutions in climate change adaptation strategies and disaster risk management.
Bozkurt/Kastamonu is one of the small towns in Black Sea Region, which is experiencing ill-effects of global climate change, local sea-temperature rise in Black Sea and following extreme weather events, such as the heavy rains 7-14thAugust 2021. The whole region -incl. towns such as Ordu, Giresun, Bartin, Sinop etc.- is prone to natural disasters, which are caused by global climate change and man-made urbanization decisions.
In Germany, as well, catastrophic food disasters -100 year flooding events- are happening in a short time span, such as those in 2002, 2013 and 2021.
During the seminar, a special focus will be on the management of waterways and river systems in selected cities. Students will acquire knowledge and technical skills to evaluate and implement the eco-system services approach to urban and environmental policy as well as management in the context of Kastamonu and Kassel. They will compare spatial planning processes in Turkey and Germany, incl. regulations, key actors, data-base step-up and smart city solutions in respective case studies. In addition, students will actively participate in organizing and conducting online open dialog meetings with experts. So, they will gain organizational and language skills.
The seminar will be composed of by 3 sections:
Theoretical input, literature research and discussions on sustainable urban development; eco-system services approach; spatial planning and environmental management (April 2022)
Organization, implementation and evaluation of 4 successive online open dialog meetings with invited experts from academia and praxis on the topics of urbanization, environmental management, disaster risk analysis and management, water management from Turkey and Germany and respective case study cities (Mai 2022):
Further research and academic writing on selected case studies with urban and environmental policy development recommendations to local and central governmental institutions to improve transdisciplinary urban and environmental planning and management (June 2022)
The end-product will be presented during the Uni-Kassel presentation week.