Urban Environmental History of an Anatolian City: Destroying the Riverscape of Kayseri

Interrelations with waters and rivers have played an important role in the formation of early settlements and city development. The long history of extensive human interventions in rivers shows that the relationship between the city and the natural environment has been a circular one. Urban developers have often reshaped the natural environment and creating huge areas of made land. They have constructed a built environment and altered urban riverscapes according to human needs, aesthetic ideals and technical options. The protection of heritage is rarely a problem because of the existing legislation. However, there is no restriction about the alteration of the urban riverscape. Hence, the most pressing problem is how easily a city's riverscape, which is a historical resource, can be changed. This paper aimed to assess the relation of integration between a city and its river and to describe the loss of the riverscape, which is a part of the cultural landscape, due to urban expansion in an Anatolian city, Kayseri, between 1882 and 2012. To address this transformation issue clearly, a case study approach was chosen and the data were obtained from historical maps, aerial photos, urban development plans and newspapers. The main finding is that the increase in urban populations and the spread of urban land use have reshaped and destroyed the river landscape of the city of Kayseri. This study showed that a river, which plays a critical role in urban history, is a non-renewable resource.