Evaluation of Teki̇rdağ province's agricultural plots by geographical information systems aided shape analysis method

One of the most important problems of the agricultural sector is the decrease in both the physical and economic functions of the agricultural pilots that are divided and become smaller, deformed and dispersed. This situation necessitates land consolidation in terms of sustainable use of agricultural lands. Land consolidation projects are high cost projects. Determining the spatial priorities before consolidation at the scale of villages, districts or basins reduces these costs and enables the national resources to be used more efficiently. In the determination of spatial priorities, on the basis of operation of agricultural parcels; There is a need for analyzes that consider factors such as dispersion, deformity, inheritance status, location to roads, and size together. In particular, deformity is an important factor that complicates the cultivation of the land and causes economic losses. The aim of this study is to determine and compare the degree of suitability for agriculture in terms of shape of the parcels to be used in site selection and prioritization of potential regions before the land consolidation projects planned to increase the efficiency of agricultural production. In order to achieve this, the shape suitability of agricultural parcels in Tekirdağ province analyzed with the help of geographic information systems on open source database application (PostgreSQL) using the PSI (Parcel shape index) method, which consists of six different parameters (side length, number of acute angles, number of obtuse angles, number of vertices, compactness and regularity) obtained from parcel geometries. First of all, the suitability degree of all parcels in the province was divided into 4 different categories (very irregularly shaped parcels, irregularly shaped parcels, appropriately shaped parcels, ideally shaped parcels), and then the average PSI value of each district was determined. Research results indicate that 17,27% of the lands are highly irregular shapes, 35,21% are irregular shapes parcels, 35,54% are regular shapes, and 11,98% are optimum shapes and large parcels have generally lower PSI values than small parcels. It is predicted that this study will create a decision support system for planners and politicians in determining spatial priorities at basin or village scale before land consolidation projects.