A Wetland Management Planning: Problems and Threats Affecting Gökçeada (Aydıncık-Salt Lake) Lagoon

Abstract

Gökçeada Lagoon is located in the southeast of Gökçeada, the largest island of Turkey. The lake, which is also called Aydıncık Lake or Salt Lake, showing the characteristics of a typical coastal lagoon with its fresh / salt water transition, coastal cords and its ecosystem, was included in the list of "Wetlands of National Importance" with 3.491 ha on 07/02/2019 and gained protection status. Agricultural activities are carried out on fertile alluvial lands around the lake, which was formed as a result of filling a depression area in the south of the island, which has a generally defective structure, with materials carried by waves, winds and rivers, and tourism activities are intensively carried out in the summer months on the coastal coast and dunes. In the lake, which is the centre of attention of local and foreign tourists, the salt layer that emerges with the withdrawal of water due to drought and evaporation in the summer season is used for health purposes by local and foreign tourists, but the use of salt has not yet been introduced to health tourism with certain laws. In the study, it is aimed to prepare a "lagoon management planning" for the solution of environmental and ecological problems that arise despite the protection status of the lake and the framework of coastal laws. It has been determined that the greatest pressure on the ecological, biological and morphological system around the lake is caused by intensive tourism activities, agricultural activities, pollution from domestic wastes and recently increasing construction works. In order to determine the use of the lagoon and the surrounding area, a land use map was prepared using the data of 2022. For coastal change detection, 1985, 2004, 2012 and 2020 satellite images were used to determine the shoreline change and it was determined that there was no change in the lake level. The lack of level change indicates that the lake is fed from different sources. For the management planning of the lagoon and its surroundings, SWOT analysis was applied, each land cover and use types were analysed separately and a wetland management plan was prepared.