Impacts of Highways on Land Uses: the Case of Antalya-Alanya Highway

Abstract

Highways, which are passing through the areas, not only damage the natural enviroment but also cause various ecological problems. To minimise these effects, an approach that takes the natural assets of highway route and land use developments into account at planning stage is very important. The Antalya-Alanya highway is one of the important highway of Turkey because it passes through many touristic places, agricultural lands, settlements and natural areas. Determination of the impacts of the highway on the natural resources is of importance for the sustainability of the regional tourism and agriculture. In the present study, a variety of negative externalities of highways are investigated, including the environmental problems caused as a result of the selection of particular routes and those that arise out of the use of the said roads. Direct impacts are caused by the road itself that is to say, by road building processes such as land consumption, removal of vegetation, and severance of agricultural areas. Indirect impacts are defined as impacts on the environment which are not an immediate result of the project, possibly produced some distance away from the project so over time they can affect larger geographical areas of the environment than anticipated.