ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 126

Introduction
Environmental issues have been increasing in the whole world. Peoples’ health and wellbeing
are affected by these issues such as air pollution, water pollution, energy consumption, urban
sprawl and CO2 and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Some countries started to stop the negative changes effecting their civilization by implementing sustainable strategies. These strategies
are achieving some sustainability in these countries without destroying the need of their future.
Turkey is one of these countries that have noticeable negative changes allowing features to move
toward sustainability.
Turkey has a strategic location between Asia and Europe, which make it as an energy link between
the oil and natural gas producer in the Middle East and the western energy consumer markets.
It’s bordering the Black Sea, Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The total area of Turkey is
approximately 781,000 km2, most of it in Western Asia and only 3% in Southeastern Europe. Topography of the country is very tough and has many slopes. Half of the land area is occupied by the
rivers. It has approximately 9 rivers and 26 catchment areas.
In recent years, Turkey was exposed to fast increase in economy and population. This caused a
noticeable inequality of welfare between the socioeconomic groups and the region. Thus, it has
increasing energy consumption. These changes stimulated the demolition of the ecosystem and
the developments that affect the wellbeing of the social (Evrendilek and Doygun 2000).
The study is investigating the main environmental, social and economic issues that Turkey faced
in the past and is facing at present. Because of these issues are causing a continuous degradation
for the natural resources. Thus, it affects the satisfaction level of the public in their country and
affects their health negatively. Thus, the study aims to evaluate the impact level of these issues on
the country’s development and the human health. Moreover, the aim of this study is to improve
the quality of the life, increase the healthy life lived, control all the hazards that cause a deterioration for the public and the natural resources, increase the stewardship practices and develop the
country economy but in sustainable way. This is carried out by providing a sustainability package including several solutions. The paper further elaborates on and discusses these solutions.
In more specific, the paper is focusing on four topics which are; the main environmental, social
and economic issues in Turkey, the impact of each on the social, the implemented challenges and
strategies toward sustainability as part of a sustainability package.

Approach, Methodology and Analysis
In order to achieve the aims of this study, a holistic approach will be conducted in order to cover
the main issues of sustainability in Turkey. An extensive literature review has been conducted
to extract the country’s environmental issues, causes, impacts and their challenges toward sustainability. This review will help in providing several new solutions to be applied (or can possibly
be applied) which have been identified through analyses of exiting literature, by studying their
results and making comparisons in order to achieve the sustainable solutions.

Environmental, Social and Economic Issues in Turkey
Turkey has several issues that related to these three main pillars of sustainability. Environmental
issues can affect the social and the economy stability and vice versa. So, they are all related to

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ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy