**5.6. Strategy WT<sup>6</sup>**

management have been largely based on unreliable datasets, and so, they need to be updated for effective planning and monitoring of land resources. In order to do that, comprehensive soil survey and mapping studies should be carried out. In addition, species especially in arid regions should be identified for preventing biodiversity losses, and necessary measures

It should be followed after the activities specified in Strategy 2. It is very important to keep up the conservation-use balance in the land-use plan, which is prepared with updated data. But, land-use planning in practice should be an integral part due to that land-use planning only for agricultural purposes is not sufficient for solving problems. District and regional planning and then land-use planning at the entire country level should be done. In the planning phase, it is necessary to include specialists working in the fields of law, economics and society, and landowners in order to effectively implement the plans besides natural resource specialists on

It suggests that research and experiments should be carried out to find most suitable landuse types in the region that are planned to be proposed primarily in land-use plans and that the results obtained in the determination of region specific uses should be objectively introduced to the people of the region and should be tested for validity of suitability by taking into account long-term forecasts and forecasts of climate change and the sensitivity of land resources to these changes. Unintended use of agricultural areas should be prevented. For that, breakup of agricultural lands, especially nonagricultural use of irrigated agricultural land, and agriculture in unfavorable agricultural land will be prevented and land consolida-

Various pollutants sourced by industrial facilities or excessive consumption of fertilizers or chemicals have the ability of easily transporting in the soil-water air cycle and affecting the ecosystem services negatively. In this context, it is proposed to establish mobile-test centers throughout the country to monitor pollution in soil and water resources and to apply effective punishments to those within the basin scale where limit values are exceeded as a result of periodically planned measurements. And, spread of the good agricultural practice techniques, establishment of modern irrigation and drainage systems in order to prevent soil salinization, planning and implementation of budgeting for drought and salinity-resistant species determination studies and identification of potential rehabilitation sites should be performed especially in the degraded arid and semiarid areas of Turkey. Proper fertilization and soil conservation strategies must be introduced. The content of soil organic matter in arid and semiarid regions should be increased with the use of animal fertilizers together with the application of stubble and green fertilizer usage techniques. Cultural and technical

– T1-6].

should be taken for sustainability [W1-3 – T1-6].

**5.3. Strategy WT<sup>3</sup>**

14 Arid Environments and Sustainability

**5.4. Strategy WT<sup>4</sup>**

**5.5. Strategy WT<sup>5</sup>**

the planning team [W5-6 – T2-3-5-6].

tion services will be accelerated [W<sup>1</sup>

The topographic and climatic conditions of Turkey limit the width of the suitable land in rural areas. Besides, the land is very fragmented in the way of inheritance, which leads farmers to use marginal lands for agricultural facilities, and it causes the land degradation process in terms of deforestation, land conversions, etc. These activities shortly give irreversible damage to areas where high slopes, shallow soil profiles and inadequate vegetation coverage are the key properties for degradation. For this reason, it is extremely important to supply an acceptable level of farm income to the farmers. In this context, rural development must be realized in agriculture. For that, agricultural income should be increased steadily, the standard of living should be increased and resources should be used more effectively and economically. Thus, the way to be followed is the regional planning of production patterns with high profit margins based on the conservation-use balance of natural resources in order to reduce the pressure on land resources considerably [W<sup>6</sup> – T3-6].

#### **6. Conclusion**

In Turkey, the effects of land degradation are considered to be mostly experienced in the inner and central Anatolia regions where the arid and semiarid areas dominate. Intensive deforestation, industrialization and rapid population growth in coastal regions have been defined as the significant threats for accelerating the impacts of climate change throughout the country and limiting the sustainability of natural resources with the aid of topographical and climatic insufficiencies. In this context, first, current situation of land degradation processes and its causes and results in Turkey were discussed and then the measures and strategies enforced in the national scale were summarized. Under the light of current situation, SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis was performed to recommend the strategies for overcoming the weakness and possible treats on sustainable land resource management. These strategies were mainly explained under the headings of deficiencies in legal regulations in Turkey: the necessity of making comprehensive land-use plans not only at the agricultural purposes but also at the regional and national scale, renewal of insufficient and unreliable databases of natural resources in terms of monitoring land degradation and climate change processes, supplying of the coordination and integration among governmental, academic, private, nongovernmental organizations and land users and dissemination of environmentally sound management practices. Finally, it is concluded that sustainable resource management must be ecologically, economically, politically and socially integrated in fragile ecosystems such as Turkey.
