Abstract
Capturing more than one hundred streams, stream network of Istanbul has got a noteworthy landscape potential. However, within the last fifty years, rapid urbanization and industrialization have brought about devastating impacts on the urban streams and suppressed their landscape potentials. Considering these suppressed potentials, this study aims to develop regenerative landscape planning strategies for urban streams of Istanbul by gaining a multi-layered understanding of the interplay between historic watercourses and urbanization. Within this context, this study handles five major streams in Istanbul which are Kagithane, Cirpici, Kurbagalidere, Baltalimani and Goksu streams. These urban watercourses are selected as case studies, regarding their notable places in the urban memory and the diverse land cover types they have got in their impact areas. By utilizing GIS technology and multi-criteria analysis, ecological, socio-cultural and economic potentials of the selected streams are evaluated according to six major parameters as size, necessity for intervention, land cover, accessibility, scenic potential-visibility and proximity to the features of urban memory. In order to cope with the challenges of 21st century, cities should provide themselves with interdisciplinary studies and welcome innovative solutions to chaotic environmental issues. This study focuses on urban water courses in Istanbul as one of these chaotic issues and highlights that even the most degraded of landscapes are worthy of our stream enhancement efforts. Urban streams have a power to improve not only the environmental quality but also the quality of life in Istanbul and this study is an attempt to highlight the importance of regenerative landscape planning for urban streams and for the benefit of Istanbul megacity.
