Determining current land cover and potential hazelnut plantation areas using GIS and RS in NE black-sea region of Turkey, Trabzon

In Turkey, hazelnut grows mostly in the Eastern Black Sea Region of the country, and has also a vital impact on regional economical development. Most important task is to determine what areas exactly hazelnut grows and how it can be grown-up productively in the region. The principle aim of this study is, firstly, to create a methodology for determining existing and potential hazelnut plantation areas, using GIS/Remote Sensing techniques in order to help hazelnut policies developers and economists. This study was done in the province of Trabzon which is one of the most hazelnut produced area of Turkey. In this study, Landsat ETM+ image was used to generate a current land cover classification. Using the supervised classification method, overall accuracy was determined as 84.7%. As for hazelnut growing areas, an 87.9% overall accuracy percentage was reached. It was determined that there is an area of 71.401 hectares hazelnut plantation area in the Trabzon province. Because hazelnut production exceeds the consumption in Turkey, some new regulations have been released to find new land use policies since 1983. By putting into practice these regulations that restrict hazelnut plantation areas, a more efficient and productive hazelnut harvest policy should be reached. As a result, potential hazelnut areas were determined and examined with respect to raster-based spatial analysis functions of GIS.