A GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS)-BASED MULTI-CRITERIA EVALUATION FOR GREENHOUSE SITE SELECTION: TIGRIS BASIN CASE STUDY

Abstract

Greenhouse agriculture is limited only by the shores of the Mediterranean and Aegean regions in Turkey. Greenhouse agriculture is not pre-ferred by producers in other regions. Especially when the Dicle basin is chosen as an example, it is necessary to heat the greenhouses in order to achieve the optimum conditions in cold seasons. However, heating costs even in temperate re-gions has a major share in the total production expenditure. For this reason, in our country, local heating is only applied to protect the plants from freezing in order to prevent regular heating in the greenhouses. Failure to achieve the re-quired level of climate conditions and the lack of heating brings with it problems such as low yield, limitation of production and the necessity of using the hormone. Greenhouses are climate controlled crop production facilities where in-door conditions can be controlled and kept in accordance with growing conditions. In green-houses if the production is required throughout the year, it is necessary to heat facility in the winter period. In Turkey, although almost all of greenhouse production is done in the Mediterra-nean Region, there are also a fairly limited area of production in Southeastern Anatolia Region. Climate, soil, wind, altitude, slope and aspect data are important in choosing the greenhouse location. In this study, a Geographic Information System (GIS) -based Multi-criteria evaluation for greenhouse site selection were applied in 5 prov-inces (Diyarbakir, Mardin, Siirt, Batman and Sirnak) of the Dicle basin by using these data. The validity of the results has been checked over with the field studies and also compared with the climatic conditions and production capacity of Adana Province, which is the third greenhouse production area in the Mediterranean Region. The suitable, non-suitable or partially suitable areas for greenhouse siting were determined in the basin by using GIS.