CHANGE OF LAND USE ACCORDING TO ELEVATION STEPS IN ANDIRIN DISTRICT (KAHRAMANMARAŞ)

43892

The active role of the human in the geographical environment remains important today, as in the past. The nature of the lands at different elevation steps affects human and economic activities and also determines the economic activities to be carried out. The Andırın district of Kahramanmaraş, chosen as a study area, has a very rich and characteristic feature with its geographical structure. This feature causes the altitude of the district to increase gradually from south to the north and accordingly to display changes in elevation steps in short distances. The surroundings of the Aslantaş Dam, located to the south of the district of Andırın, attracted the population along with agricultural activities. 200 – 1200 m elevation, where population and agriculture come to the fore, is a generation where land cover is used intensively. In the district, it is seen that geographical conditions determine human activities from a height of 1500 m. The fact that the north of the district forms a mountainous and fragmented morphological structure has limited the economic activities carried out in this area. While this situation narrowed the settlement and agricultural areas, it extended the use of forest areas. The elevation steps map prepared using SYM (Digital Elevation Model) data was transferred to the digital environment with ArcGIS 10.5 software and coincided with CORINE land use datasets. This change, which occurred due to the altitude, allowed the development of an location oriented perspective in geographical planning studies.

668

Andırın , Land Use , Elevation Steps , Population and Settlement

International Journal of Geography and Geography Education

688

International Journal of Geography and Geography Education