Present land use situation and sustainable management of balikesir plain lands

Non-agricultural uses for residential and industrial areas and water-wind erosion are the primary factors that threaten agricultural lands in our country and region. For this reason, Balıkesir Great Plain Conservation Area, which is one of the most important land assets of Balıkesir Province, has been selected as the study area. With this study, a database containing information such as current land cover / land use map, soil classes map according to Law No. 5403, digital elevation model was created, and erosion estimation was made using the CORINE erosion model. This database, which was created by using geographic information systems and remote sensing techniques, is intended to be used as a base for directing non-agricultural demands, alternative lands comparison and measures against erosion. At the end of the research, it was determined that the lands of Balıkesir Büyükova Conservation Area occupies 26 thousand hectares and the most common land use type is agricultural lands with 78.36 % and 20132.8 hectares. As a result of classification of agricultural lands within the scope of Law No. 5403, It has been determined that 118068,30 da is absolute farmland (MT), 74080,80 da special products land (OT) and 3671,8 da planted farmland (DT). Marginal agricultural lands constitute only 1% (1906,20 da) of Balıkesir Büyükova Conservation Area. Also, in order to produce sustainable land management decisions, erosion risk maps of Balıkesir Büyükova Conservation Area lands were produced. For this purpose, CORINE erosion model has been applied to the lands of Büyükova protected area using GIS techniques. The model based on the computation of four separate indices; soil erodibility, erosivity, topography and vegetation cover which are then combined and classified by the GIS techniques to produce erosion risk maps for both actual and potential erosion. The results of the potential erosion risk maps indicated that 68,8%, 20,2% and 2,91% of the study area were under low, moderate, and high potential erosion risks, respectively. The actual erosion risk map, in which vegetation cover is taken into account, showed that a very small portion of the study area has a medium and high erosion risk, while a large portion has a low soil erosion risk.