A Case Study for the Environmental Humanities: Climate Change Observed in Kozak Basin (Izmir/Turkey) and Local People’s Perception of Global Climate Change

Climate change and its effects, which are increasingly felt in today’s world and seen as an important threat to the future, have caused states to produce policies related to the issue, and many scientific studies have been conducted on climate change. However, at this point, more is needed for each research area to deal with climate change unilaterally; It has been seen that a multidimensional and interdisciplinary perspective is necessary. In this sense, this project, with the view of “Environmental Humanities,” a multidisciplinary field of study, aimed to determine the effects of climate change observed in Kozak and the global climate change perception of Kozak Plateau Residents. Within the scope of the project, the data of Bergama and Ayvalık meteorological stations and the basin’s temperature, precipitation, and humidity values were determined, and flow changes were revealed with the data of the flow observation station of DSI. In addition, precipitation and temperature data from previous years were selected in areas where climate data were insufficient with the dendrochronology method. Finally, a semi-structured interview was conducted to determine the climate change perception of the region’s people. Daily, maximum and minimum temperature and daily total precipitation data of two meteorological stations located in the research area were evaluated. MAKESENS (Mann- Kendall test for trend and Sen’s slope estimates) was used to determine the long-term changes and trends in temperature and precipitation and to test their statistical significance. No invasive species or species were found in the area, the number of which increased depending on the temperature. According to the semi-structured qualitative interview findings, it was found that the people of Kozak Plateau were aware of climate change and had some knowledge about the causes and consequences of climate change. According to the dendrochronological data findings, although there is a parallelism between the annual precipitation amount and the annual ring increments of the trees, this is not direct evidence of climate change.