Rural planning guidelines for urban-rural transition zones as a tool for the protection of rural landscape characters and retaining urban sprawl: Antalya case from Mediterranean

Rurban landscapes describe the transition areas between urban and surrounding rural environments where city, agriculture, rurality and nature meet. There is a crucial need that urban-rural transition zones must be managed with proper planning instruments to ensure the continuity of agricultural production and to maintain food safety for cities and preserving traditional land use patterns and natural environment and overall rural characters. Urban expansion creates different sprawl models in between rural and urban transitions zones that require careful evaluation due to their multiple features and potentials of rural-agricultural-natural intersection boundaries. The aim of the study is to analyze urban sprawl models and to present applicability of a rural planning guideline for in urban-rural transition zones in Ekşili case, in Turkish Mediterranean Antalya that still preserves its rural character. In this context, the Rural Planning Guide can be defined as a planning tool that based on environmental, spatial and social characters of both rural and urban areas. A planning zone, including urban sprawl areas and rural land was delineated as the boundaries for the Rural Planning Guide from the building scale to the rural boundaries in the planning hierarchy which eventually provide the continuity of the rural characters, to maintain agricultural productivity and to protect natural biodiversity.