Attitudes of people toward climate change regarding the bioclimatic comfort level in tourism cities; evidence from Antalya, Turkey

Abstract

In addition to several negative environmental effects, climate change, which reduces bioclimatic comfort levels especially in urban areas, also has economic implications, especially in cities where the economic structure is tourism-oriented. Considering most of the tourism practices are based on outdoor activities in cities such as Antalya, it is of great importance to determine bioclimatic comfort level as well as the attitudes of people toward climate change who live in those conditions to be able to take proper precautions in terms of tourism and urban planning. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to reveal the bioclimatic comfort conditions of Antalya city center, and a comprehensive questionnaire was conducted with the people living in the area questioning the opinions on reasons and consequences of climate change, perceivable effects of climate change in Antalya, and suggestions to prevent or reduce the adverse effects. The areas with appropriate bioclimatic comfort conditions were determined and mapped via geographical information systems using temperature and relative humidity data of the years between 1960 and 2018. The data gathered via questionnaires were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis, regression, correlation, and structural equation modelling via SPSS and AMOS software. According to the results, it was determined that in some parts of city center the bioclimatic comfort conditions decreased to levels that could reach harmful dimensions for human health and the analysis of the questionnaires revealed that people living in that area state that the effects of climate change are perceivable as the precipitation seasons have become irregular. According to the participants, it was determined that a 1-unit increase in environmental measures causes a decrease of 0.136 units in disasters (R2 = 1.1%). In comparison, 1-unit increase of Administrative Precautions will cause 0.030 units decrease in effects of climate change on vital needs (R2 = 1.4%). These analysis results show that the respondents expect the disaster scenarios to decrease when environmental measures are increased.