Importance of greenways in the formation of urban landscape: The case of Antakya city

Greenways are developed as a concept of sustainable land use compatible with the ecological, recreational, cultural, aesthetic, and other purposes. They planned, designed and managed network systems in the 21 century in USA and in Europe. As the concept of integrity, physically demonstrating the continuity of patient protection is at the forefront of greenways, but recreational use is an effective purpose. The Asi river has character that should be evaluated within a greenway studies in terms both of physical configuration of Antakya urban areas and regulation of urban ecosystem, protection of urban flora and fauna and creating rich resources to different kind of recreation activities. In this paper, in case of Antakya city, opportunities of planning the greenway system in conjunction with recreation-oriented and the protection have been revealed. In this context, possible greenway route has been tried to determine the city natural and cultural features based on existing and planned open and green spaces systems. The functioning of the greenway system was tried to evaluate as designed route adapted to the 'Weighted Criteria Method'. The user research findings in consequence of the questionnaire have been guiding for evaluation