Detection
of current and potential hazelnut plantation areas in Trabzon, North East Turkey
using GIS and RS
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Selçuk Reis1 and Tahsin
Yomralıoglu2
1Department of
Geodesy and Photogrammetry, Faculty of Engineering, Aksaray University,
Turkey
2Department of
Geodesy and Photogrammetry, Karadeniz Technical University,
Turkey
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(Received: 21 May, 2005 ; Accepted: 26 December, 2005)
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Abstract: Monitoring
agricultural products requires the periodic determination of land cover and the
production of land use policies in an optimum way. The hazelnut is one of the
important Turkish agricultural exports and Turkey provides 77% of the world’s
hazelnuts. In Turkey,
hazelnut production exceeds the demand; new regulations have been enacted to
create new land use policies. By putting into practice regulations restricting
hazelnut plantation areas, a more efficient and productive hazelnut harvest
policy could be created. Therefore, more information on existing land cover is
required to determine optimum (or ideal) potential hazelnut areas (PHA) and to
forecast future crop production. The principle aim of this study is to create a
methodology for determining existing PHA, using Geographic information system
(GIS) and remote sensing (RS) techniques regarding to support hazelnut policy
developers and economists. This study was basically carried out in the province of Trabzon, which is one of the most
important hazelnut production areas in Turkey. Landsat
ETM+ image was used to generate a current land cover classification. Using the
supervised classification method, overall accuracy was determined to be 84.7%.
Suitable hazelnut areas were determined according to criteria settled by
government regulations.
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Key words: Hazelnut,
Agriculture, GIS, Remote sensing, Land cover.
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