Investigation on the Environmental Awareness Level and Its Developing Possibilities in Tekirdag, Turkey

Abstract

Environmental awareness is the understanding of the importance of that the destruction of the environment must be avoided and the sustainable use of the environment needs to be maintained. Process of environmental awareness is not certainly that of simple starting with the interaction of man and environment and lasting for lifetime learning on parallel to personal maturation and been effected by the complex of many factors where people live in. Effective implementation of environmental conservation programs depends on the increase of environmental awareness. This study aimed to determine environmental awareness of inhabitants of Tekirdag city, which is the one of industry centre in Turkey and is facing varied environmental problems. The behaviour and thoughts of inhabitants on environmental problems were investigated through specially prepared questionnaire form. Furthermore, this study investigates the influence of the economic and socio-cultural factors on the environmental awareness. Questionnaire study was conducted on 400 people during January June 2005 through face-to-face interviewing method. On the 'Socio-economic Characteristic', relation between the factors of gender, age, profession, education that effecting socio-economic characteristics was studied. According to the results of this study, the environmental awareness score was calculated as 62.22.