Quantifying the effect of landuse change on olive tree cultivation in the vicinity of Edremit between 1979 and 2006 using GIS and RS techniques

Abstract

In Edremit region, located on the northwest of Turkey, tourism activity, which has started in 1970's, has caused landuse changes. Because of the construction of secondary houses and touristic facilities in the coastal zone, olive fields had been replaced with buildings. From 1990's, olive fields have been reestablished in the slopes of Kaz Mountain on the altitudes between 300-500 in in marginal lands. By comparison of Balikesir Province land map for 1979 and satellite images of Landsat ETM+ for 2006, transformed areas for landuse were determined. According to this, 2482 hectares of olive cultivation land have been transformed into residential areas and 116 hectares have been transformed to barren lands and pastures. While the area covered by residential areas was 4720 hectares in 1979, it has arisen to 8185 hectares in 2006. 99.7% of the land, which has been transformed to other forms of landuses from the olive cultivation areas, is located within 0-200 m of coastal zone. 5610 hectares of olive fields, where ecologically olive best grows, have been transformed to other forms of uses. While the olive groves in the coastal zone, which had been lost because of the transformation to residential areas, were being reestablished, forests dominated by Red pines (Pinus brutia) have been destructed. In these areas, which were natural occurrence areas of Red pine and ecologically not suitable for olive tree cultivation, 4133 hectares of forest area had been transformed to olive groves over the past three decades.