Investigation of Hemeroby Degree of Vegetation in Urban Transport Areas: The Case of İzmit (Kocaeli)

One of today's main problems is the destruction of the ecosystems by human influence. In conjunction with the industriali-zation, increasing population and the number of factories has a negative impact on the natural vegetation of biotopes. To meas-ure the intensity of this destruction, universally recognised hemeroby scale is used. İzmit, which is also an industrialized town and was reborn from its ashes after a major earthquake in 1999 has similar ecosystem problems. This study's primary aims are; (1) Identifying the biotope in İzmit's terrestrial (=railway and highway) transportation areas, (2) Comparing with the transportation areas of Anatolian side of İstanbul in A2 region, (3) Examining the causes of differences, (4) Additionally, revealing the floral structure of the city in transportation areas. According to the results of the study, the biotope type distributed in the terrestrial transportation areas of the city of İzmit is compared to the biotope type of the terrestrial transportation areas in the Anatolian side of Istanbul in A2 region. The causes of the differences observed are examined and the flora of the transportation areas of the city was revealed. According to our results, it's understood that these biotope types have different hemeroby degrees. Ob-tained results were compared with the results of similar studies from cities in Turkey as well as some European cities and the ob-served differences were evaluated. Additionally, flora of transportation areas of the city has been broadly revealed. Also, sugges-tions were made on the ecological basis of the city in the future, about the measures to be taken to protect the existing flora and the sustainability of the developing biotopes.