Land use pattern at Alacam mountainous range land (Submediterranean-Turkey) due to edaphic and physiographical factors

Abstract

Soil degradation is perceived as a major threat in the Mediterranean region due to land use pattern and projected climate change. As the high altitudinal mountainous lands are sensitive lands, the land use patterns at Alacam mountains were investigated in this study. The assessment of land use distribution is arranged with the altitude, exposure, slope and bedrock parameters. The spatial database of project was created using GRASS GIS open source software (GRASS Development Team, 2008). The scanned land use and main rock map of the project area rectified, digitized, and attributes of land use and bedrocks were entered into the database tables. Also raster SRTM3 data were imported into these databases for making physiographical factor (elevation, slope, aspect) maps. Our findings illustrated that the whole area of Alacam mountains is 282 480 ha where most of the area of the mass is located between 700-1300 m asl with 200 585 ha corresponding to 71% of the whole area. We detected two kinds of mis-land use: (1) agricultural activities applied at the slopes above 17% (representing 35 220 ha) and agricultural activities applied on metamorphic rocks (representing 872 ha). Total misuse of lands reached 36 092 ha comprised 12.77% of the whole area.