Determining landscape value of southern Black Sea Blue Flag beaches

Coastal areas have historically been important and attractive areas for human settlements. The most important function of these areas is their proximity to water. Therefore, as the world population has increased, anthropogenic pressure on coastal areas has become an issue with high priority to be researched. This situation has necessitated the management of coasts with sustainable approaches. Türkiye, with its geographical location and climatic characteristics, has significant natural landscapes with tourism potential in the mediterranean basin. As stressed in European Landscape Convention in order to protect natural landscapes, identification is a first step to building necessary data inventories that help in planning stage. Therefore, determining landscape value of natural landscapes may help to build such inventories. In this context, this study was conducted to investigate the landscape value of beaches located on the Black Sea coast using expert-based evaluation technique. To this end, coastal sand formations that have received the Blue Flag label and are of a certain size in morphological terms were examined through field surveys. Accordingly, it was determined that the landscape value calculated for each beach is related to the composition and design of the vegetation cover, species diversity and density, and other services offered at the beaches. The highest Landscape Value (Lv) scores were calculated for Palm Beach, Cebeci, Kumcağız and Miliç beaches. It should also be stressed that Blue Flag beaches have great importance in terms of Southern Black Sea coastal management strategies.