Determination of Greenhouse Potential in Siirt Province and Districts by Using GIS and Recommendations to Producers

Abstract

The main source of income is livestock, and the most cultivated plant is pistachio (Pistacia vera) for agricultural purposes in Siirt and districts. Dry agriculture is practiced due to lackness of water sources and rainfall in the province. This limits the possibilities of generating income. The province is not sufficient in terms of agricultural production and migration from rural to other provinces is seen as a big social problem. In order to prevent this problem, agricultural supports have been increased and projects have been supported by government. However, greenhouse cultivation has not been adopted well enough in the region due to the fact that the climatic conditions are not perfectly suitable and the appropriate locations are not selected in the projects. In this study, appropriate location analyzes for greenhouses (climate and topography) were mapped with the geographical information system. In this way, it is aimed to increase the existing potential of the greenhouses of the province. An analysis was performed on open source QuantumGIS software during the study. The bioclimatic raster data set containing the climate data for the are were obtained from the World climate database. These sets, which contain temperature and precipitation data, are resolution 30 arc-seconds 1 km2. After the formation of raster maps containing temperature and rainfall values for the region, the climatic data are separated into three categories as suitable, partly suitable and unsuitable classes. In order to determine suitable areas, climate and structural features required for the greenhouse were obtained from the literature and the raster analysis was made. According to the results of the study, City center, Kurtalan, and Baykan were considered partially suitable for greenhouse cultivation and other districts were not suitable. However, due to the snow and wind loads that may occur in these districts, It has been found that greenhouses need to be constructed with structurally reinforced profiles and alternative energy sources are necessary for heating greenhouses. With the maps created by QuantumGIS, the areas that are currently being used for greenhouses are overlapping with results. In addition, according to the results of this study, structural and practical recommendations were made for the producers in the region.