EUROPEAN SOIL BUREAU ⎯ RESEARCH REPORT NO.

Soil Survey and Soil Database of

Turkey
Ural Dinç1
Suat Senol1
Cemil Cangir2
A. Oğuz Dinç1
Erhan Akça1
Mahmut Dingil1
Eren Oztekin1
Burçak Kapur3
Selim Kapur1
1
Department of Soil Science, University of Cukurova, 01330, Adana, Turkey
2
Department of Soil Science, University of Thrace, Tekirdag, Turkey
3
Department of Environmental Engineering, Yuzuncu Yil University, Van, Turkey

Introduction Countrywide Soil Surveys

Turkey has a total land area of 78 million ha.
About 28 million ha are devoted to cultivation.
Thus, over the last five decades soil surveys have
received particular attention for land use planning
and the sustainable management of natural
resources that have been carried out by the
responsible body of the General Directorate of
Rural Services (GDRS).
Unfortunately, farmland is threatened by a rapidly
growing, huge transportation and construction
industry in need of large spaces that have mainly
occupied prime soils with access to marketing
centres and metropolitan areas since the early
1960s. Hence, the country’s primary necessity has
been to consider the re-establishment and
renovation of the previously functioning soil
survey service of the General Directorate of Soil
and Water (TOPRAKSU-Turkish acronym)
transformed as the GDRS.
The major emphasis is on the development of
interdisciplinary management plans for the
numerous agro-ecosystems of the country. The
renovation of the soil survey activities, the
responsibility of the Ministries of Agriculture,
Forestry and Environment in Turkey, follows
earlier examples of development elsewhere, such
as that of the Macaulay Soil Research Institute of
Scotland in Aberdeen into its contemporary
version, the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute
(MLURI).
conducted by the GDRS
In the early 1960s, the task of classifying and
mapping of soils in Turkey in more detail than in
the past soil surveys (Caglar, 1958; Oakes, 1958)
was given to the former TOPRAKSU or the
present GDRS. These studies were meant to be
part of the small-scale reconnaissance soil maps of
Europe, which were prepared from 1966 to 1971,
using topographic maps at 1:25,000 scales. The
preparation of further maps at provincial
(1:100,000 scale) and basin level (twenty six maps
at 1:200,000 scale), (Figure 1) for use in land
management and planning, was undertaken using
the Great Soil Group system of Baldwin et al.,
(1938), together with essential phases.
The pioneering soil studies using the earlier
version of Soil Taxonomy of the Soil Survey Staff
(USDA, 1960) were accomplished by Groneman
(1968) in Karapinar (Central Anatolia), de Meester
(1970) on the Konya Plain (Central Anatolia) and
Boxem and Wielemaker (1972) in the Kucuk
Menederes Valley (Western Anatolia). From 1973
to 1984, numerous soil survey reports of the GDRS
enabled planners to develop the strategies needed
for solving problems related to land use planning
and accomplishing well based legislation (State
Planning Office-SPO, 1973, 1979, 1984; Official
Gazette, 1995).

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Figure 1: The water basins of Turkey

GDAE MANC Total area surveyed:1.900.540 ha

GDRS

Figure 2: Soil Surveys undertaken by The University of Çukurova in collaboration

with the GDAE, GDRS and MANC

However, these land use legislations were rarely use policies. Ultimately, this caused the expected
applied in reality, due to uncoordinated actions by mismatch between land quality and land use,
government agencies and local administrations resulting in land resource consumption (Cangir et
pursuing different approaches in developing land al., 2000) and land degradation.

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The present GDRS activities and responsibilities in
the area of soils are to sustain soil and water
management, monitor soil fertility of cultivated
soils, conduct environmental impact assessments
and create the national soil database. To address
these activities, the National Information Centre of
Soil and Water Resources (NIC) was established in
1999.
The NIC has recently completed the digitisation of
the available soil maps at the scale of 1:25,000 and
has set up the national data base. Thus, thematic
maps, such as those relating to present land use,
erosion risk and land use capability, are made
available on request by NIC for governmental and
public use. In addition, a network of organisations
is under construction to cover many aspects of the
natural resources of the country.
Soil Surveys, Monitoring of
Land Degradation and
Desertification of Agro-
ecosystems
Soil surveys supporting agro-ecosystem
management have mostly been conducted by the
departments of Soil Science of several universities
in the country, for example, by the University of
Cukurova in Adana, Southern Turkey (Figure 2).
The Soil Survey and Remote Sensing Research
Group of this university, equipped with
contemporary soft- and hardware technology, led
by the principal author of this article, has
accomplished the soil survey of a land area of
337,000ha in the south of Turkey, Cukurova region
(Figure 3) and 32,000ha in Northern Cyprus at a
scale of 1:25,000, with funds from MANC.
Other large scale soil survey work undertaken by
the research group of the department has included
the mapping of the land use and land capability of
a total of 27 State Farms of the General Directorate
of Agricultural Establishments (GDAE) at a scale
of 1:25,000, covering a land area of 361,980ha
(Figure 4). The largest project undertaken by the
department has been the detailed soil survey and
land use planning of the 14 basins (853,188ha) of
the South Eastern Anatolian Irrigation Project area
(The GAP, Turkish acronym), funded by the
GDRS (Figure 5).
Maps are available at the NIC in digitised format at
1:25,000 scales for all of the cultivated soils of
Turkey. The soil map and the database of 1:1
million scale is also being prepared in
collaboration with the GDRS using the system of
the World Reference Base (WRB), and is available
Soil Survey and Soil Data Base of Turkey. Dinç et al.
on the website of the NIC. Furthermore, soil
studies related to environmental management and
monitoring of the Agroscapes (term coined by
Akça et al., 2004 to complement the Soilscape
concept of the WRB designating particular
landscapes of soils with indigenous plant cover)
have been conducted in the department in
collaboration with the Mediterranean Agronomic
Institute in Bari, Italy, funded by the EU.
New projects focussing on man-made Agroscapes
are under preparation, covering the riparian
countries of the Mediterranean basin. These are led
by the European Soils Bureau of the Instıtute of
Environment and Sustainability in Ispra-Milan,
Italy. The Departments of Soil Science of the
Universities of Ankara, Atatürk in Erzurum-
Eastern Turkey, Ege in Izmir-Western Turkey and
Thrace in Tekirdağ, Thrace have conducted
numerous soil surveys concerning the sustainable
land management of particular areas at risk from
improper land use.
A special study of the soils of Thrace has been
undertaken by the Research Group of Land
Evaluation of the Department of Soil Science of
the University of Thrace, with emphasis on
pollution caused by the increasing industrial
sprawl. This has involved the preparation of land
use maps, together with environmental risk
assessments and land use capability classifications,
and these form a basis for recommendations for the
most appropriate land use.
Soil Surveys and Land Use
Planning for the Sustainable
Use of Water
The General Directorate of the State Hydraulic
Works (SHW) has completed maps at the scale of
1:25,000 showing soil suitability for irrigation in
the large basins in Turkey. The maps have been
used for the sustainable water management of the
basins in collaboration with the GDRS.
Since the early 1960’s the SHW has been
monitoring water availability in basins using data
obtained from numerous observation wells,
meteorological records and records of the amounts
of water used in irrigation. Further studies on the
determination of sustainable water management
proceeds via bilateral international projects and the
collaboration of the Department of Agricultural
Constructions and Irrigation of the University
Cukurova. The main concern of these studies is
irrigation and related agricultural practices such as
tillage and their effects on regional climate change
especially in the Mediterranean part of Turkey.
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Figure 3: Soil association map of the Cukurova Region in the WRB system

Figure 4: Land Capability Classes of Figure 5: Soil association map of the

the Altınova State Farm Harran Plain- the largest plain in South
Eastern Anatolia

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Participation of the irrigation management unions
is also sought for the development of a bottom to
top approach for the determination of sustainable
water management in the basin.
Future Prospects for Soil
Survey in Turkey
There is an increasing demand for available as well
as new reconnaissance and detailed soil surveys in
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