A GIS Based Land Suitability and Gross Value Evaluation of Mined Lands in Şanlıurfa District

Abstract

Landmined areas are located along the borders of Şanlıurfa province between Turkey and Syria with 220 km length and 400 m width. Governmental institutions attempted to determine the potential and suitability of mined lands for any agricultural activities before removing active mines. The research was conducted to estimate land suitability and gross value for irrigated agricultural production (GVIAP) of the mined areas using the database for the surrounding land and data obtained by Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques. The study was conducted in three steps; data including soil characteristics, digital elevation model (DEM) and orthophoto images of lands located 2 km nearby the mined land along the Turkish border were collected. The data containing DEM and orthophoto images of mined and adjacent lands were integrated in the second step. Finally, a field survey was conducted along the border district and soil samples were collected for each soil boundary nearby the mined lands. The integration of data in GIS allowed to expand the soil boundaries from adjacent lands into the mined lands. Data analysis showed that the total mined land is 6706 hectares of which 90.2% is highly and moderately suitable, 6.9% is less suitable and 2.9% is not suitable for irrigated agriculture. The gross value of irrigated agricultural production was estimated as 2212 US Dollars per hectare. The results revealed that the integration of inaccessible land database with the remote sensing data and GIS can be used to estimate the gross value which is derived from soil characteristics of the mined lands.

Keywords

• gross value added
• adjacent data
• mined lands
• land evaluation
• syria border
• landmined areas