Detection of current and potential hazelnut plantation areas in Trabzon, North East Turkey using GIS and RS

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.