Abstract

Greenhouses have become quite a sought-after agricultural sector due to government support and private company preferences in recent years in Turkey. Greenhouse activities are only limited to Mediterranean and Aegean regions of Turkey and it is not much preferred in the inner regions. Due to these regions being preferred by people, mainly as tourism and settlement areas, it has become essential to find new areas for greenhouse operations. The climatic and topographical conditions in the Southeastern Anatolia Region, are appropriate regarding greenhouses. In this context, the Lower Euphrates Basin is selected as the study area. It covers four provinces (Adiyaman, Gaziantep, Kilis and Sanliurfa) and is one of the preferred regions for greenhouse operations in recent years. In this study, the climatic conditions and the production capacity of the Antalya province, which has the most greenhouse production areas of the Mediterranean Region and Turkey, are taken into consideration and the four provinces of the Lower Euphrates Basin were investigated for their compatibility with the desired conditions concerning green housing. Climate, soil, wind, altitude, slope, aspect, distance to rivers and lakes data are essential in choosing the greenhouse location. A Geographic Information System (GIS)-based multi-criteria evaluation for greenhouse site selection was applied in the study area 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 Antalya Province. The suitable, non-suitable or partially suitable areas for greenhouse siting in the basin were determined in terms of GIS, for guidance to producers and researchers in the future.

Key words: Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), greenhouse siting, Lower Euphrates Basin, geographic ınformation system (GIS).