VIRTUAL Manchester Livable Cities
Abstract
A decade after the Paris Agreement, the world met in Brazil for COP30 — one of the most consequential climate summits of the past decade, yet also a reminder of the persistent headwinds that continue to challenge global mitigation and adaptation efforts. As indirect drivers of biodiversity loss intensify direct drivers such as land and sea use change, climate change, and pollution, the link between urban ecosystems, their services (ESs), and the changing climate has moved to the forefront of global environmental discourse. Safeguarding these ESs, which constitute a crucial form of natural capital, is essential for achieving both livable cities and, consequently, a livable planet (Richard et al., 2025). In this context, Bursa, ranked as the sixth city on Türkiye’s socio-economic development scale, serves as a representative case where rapid urban expansion and land use/land cover transformation have been driven by the growing significance of the industrial sector. Using multi-temporal CORINE Land Cover (CLC+) Backbone data from the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, this study maps and quantifies the spatial and temporal changes in ESs relevant to climate adaptation. The analysis aims to identify how the adaptation potential of Bursa’s ecosystems changed between 2018 and 2023 based on quantitative and spatial transformations, and examines the instrumentalization of ESs in spatial planning in line with the principle of adaptation to climate change. References: Richard, D., Ebadi, E., Mayr, K., Russ, J., & Zaveri, E. (2025). Reboot development: the economics of a livable planet. Washington DC: World Bank. doi: 10.1596/978-1-4648-2271-1
Dr. Zeynep Turkay is a landscape architect and has a PhD in urban and regional planning, focusing on ecosystem services, integration of ecosystem services into spatial planning, blue-green infrastructure, and climate adaptation. As a TUBITAK 2218 Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, she leads a project developing an ecosystem services based blue-green infrastructure system planning approach for climate change adaptation in Bursa. She also serves as a Chapter 6 Fellow in IPBES, contributing to spatial planning and connectivity assessment. Her research integrates spatial analysis, scenario development
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Merve Ersoy is a landscape architect at Bursa Technical University. She completed her MSc in Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing, and her work focuses on ecosystem services, remote sensing, and green infrastructure planning. During her PhD, she specialized in carbon storage and climate regulation, and received training in Switzerland from the team who developed the ecosystem services model used in her research. Supported by a national ministry scholarship, her doctoral work received the 10th Landscape Architecture Encouragement Award. She has also provided consultancy for the Agriculture and Rural Areas sector of the Bursa Environmental Master Plan.
Prof. Dr. Gul Sayan Atanur is a landscape architect at Bursa Technical University, specializing in urban landscapes, green infrastructure, and nature-based planning strategies. Her scholarly work includes numerous publications and research projects on the planning and design of urban green spaces. She serves on the Advisory Board of Bursa Metropolitan Municipality, where she contributes expertise to urban policy and environmentally oriented planning processes. She also collaborates with the WHO European Healthy Cities Network and WHO, focusing on place–health relationships and advancing resilient, equitable approaches to urban transformation.
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
Wednesday 17th June, 2026