The estimation of non-irrigated crop area and production using the regression analysis approach: A case study of Bursa Region (Turkey) in the mid-nineteenth century

PLoS One. 2021 Apr 30;16(4):e0251091. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251091. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Agricultural land cover and its changing extent are directly related to human activities, which have an adverse impact on the environment and ecosystems. The historical knowledge of crop production and its cultivation area is a key element. Such data provide a base for monitoring and mapping spatio-temporal changes in agricultural land cover/use, which is of great significance to examine its impacts on environmental systems. Historical maps and related data obtained from historical archives can be effectively used for reconstruction purposes through using sample data from ground observations, government inventories, or other historical sources. This study considered historical population and cropland survey data obtained from Ottoman Archives and cropland suitability map, accessibility, and geophysical attributes as ancillary data to estimate non-irrigated crop production and its corresponding cultivation area in the 1840s Bursa Region, Turkey. We used the regression analysis approach to estimate agricultural land area and grain production for the unknown data points in the study region. We provide the spatial distribution of production and its cultivation area based on the estimates of regression models. The reconstruction can be used in line with future historical research aiming to model landscape, climate, and ecosystems to assess the impact of human activities on the environmental systems in preindustrial times in the Bursa Region context.

Publication types

  • Historical Article
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Agricultural Irrigation / history*
  • Agricultural Irrigation / methods
  • Climate
  • Crop Production / methods*
  • Crops, Agricultural / history*
  • Ecosystem
  • Environmental Monitoring / methods*
  • Geographic Information Systems / instrumentation*
  • History, 19th Century
  • Human Activities / statistics & numerical data*
  • Humans
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Regression Analysis
  • Turkey

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) project: "Industrialisation and Urban Growth from the mid-nineteenth century Ottoman Empire to Contemporary Turkey in a Comparative Perspective, 1850–2000" under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program Grant Agreement No. 679097, acronym UrbanOccupationsOETR. M. Erdem Kabadayı is the principal investigator of UrbanOccupationsOETR. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.