RELOCATION OF THE FISH FARMS IN GULLUK BAY

Yalcin Arisoy, Guzel Yucel-Gier, Idil Pazi

Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey

Abstract

During the last two decades, in Turkey, fish farming has had an increasing importance, and this can be explained, in part, by the fact that after the many major marine fishery resources have being depleted. Based upon this tendency, fish farming has accelerated throughout the country, and the total production has reached 170,000 tons in 2010. As a result of this significant development, several conflicts among the stakeholders were raised, parallel to increased water degradation and pollution of the environment. The issue has become important from the point of view of public interest, the government objectives and the regional development priorities. But there were no technical criteria or measures in order to help to establish a sustainable and fair development model. After a certain period of time, in 2009, on the basis of a series of studies carried out, and the new regulation for aquaculture, most sea farm cages, including those in Gulluk Bay, were relocated by towing them from shallow water to relatively deeper areas. Site selection for fish farming was an important issue, still is, despite some progress. Concordantly, as a representative case of fish farming relocation program, this paper presents preliminary studies related to the development of a GIS based archive at Dokuz Eylul University (DEU), in Izmir, Turkey, to help and support to regional Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) efforts.

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