DETERMINATION OF AGRICULTURAL LAND SUITABILITY CLASSES FOR SAMSUN PROVINCE BASED ON PARAMETRIC AND HIERARCHY APPROACHES

Land quality index is an important tool for evaluating agro-ecosystem. The aim of this study is to determine and agricultural land suitability classes for Samsun province based on two different land quality indexes model (parametric-AKIg and hierarchy-AKIa) approaches and to create maps of them. Total 995 soil samples were taken from soil surface (0-20cm) in Samsun province covers about 9579 km2. Total data set (TDS) consists of nine land and physic-chemical soil properties (soil depth, slope, texture, pH, EC, lime content, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. In order to generate MDS, principal component analysis was done. Exponential and Gaussian of simple kriging models were used to generate distribution map of the AKIa and AKIg suitability classes in TDS. According to results, about 15% total study area is not suitable for agricultural activities whereas, about 30% of it is suitable and highly suitable for agricultural usage. In addition, Exponential simple of kriging models were used to generate distribution map of the AKIa and AKIg suitability classes in MDS. According to results, about 29.5% total study area was found as suitableand highly suitable for agricultural activities in AKIa model while, about 22.1% of it is suitable and highly suitable for agricultural usages in AKIg model. Moreover, the results of linear correlation and kappa statistical analysis showed that land quality was better estimated using AKIa, compared to the AKIg in TDS and MDS