The Role and Importance of Landscape Planning in Spatial Planning

Abstract Planning is the process of making decisions and making choices beforehand in order to reach a target set for the future. Planning evaluates the past and future situations by integrating spatial, natural, social, economic, etc. factors while making decisions for the future. The geographies we live in today have become places where natural resources are consumed excessively, uncontrolled and unplanned development, human scale is exceeded and environmental problems are high. In this direction, ecological approaches should be taken as a basis while making land use decisions. In this direction, the main purpose of landscape planning, which is a process in which plan decisions are made regarding the most rational use of the land by considering ecological factors, is to preserve the existing structure of the natural landscape in order to meet human needs in the best and continuous way. In this study, the effect of landscape planning in reducing the environmental problems that affect our lives more and more seriously with each passing day is questioned and the spatial planning hierarchies and spatial planning structures of Turkey, Denmark, Mexico, Germany, Japan and England are examined. In this context, the place and role of landscape planning in the spatial planning system in Turkey has been questioned. As a result, suggestions were made for the spatial planning hierarchy for Turkey.