Socio-economic Impact Assessment of Land Consolidation Projects in Turkey: A Case Study of Beyazaltın Village Land Consolidation Project in Eskişehir Province, Turkey

Emphasis is placed on developing and implementing projects for the efficient use of land resources in developing countries due to high population growth and high growth targets. Especially in developing countries like Turkey, the agricultural sector still has an important place in the economy of the country due to criteria such as agricultural production, employment and foreign trade. The average enterprise land of agricultural operations, which are 3.1 million units in total, is around 6 hectares, and 64% of households are known to have holding lands assets that are smaller than 5 hectares. It has been determined that a total of 32.5 million parcels are in the form of agricultural land and that the agricultural land processed per household is composed of 11 parcels, 2 million hectares of land is out of production due to excessive fragmentation and agricultural land have more than 40 million shareholders. Due to the improper shape and forms of parcels increase machine power and labor utilization, as well as the cost of input, and consequently, the objective of efficient and productive use of land resources cannot be achieved. Land consolidation practices consist of addressing collectively he implementation are of the consolidation project, along with the reorganization of parcels based on road and irrigation networks, infrastructure services such as motorways, railways, airports, conservation areas, ecological corridors, transportation to pastures, arrangement of village settlements, irrigation water, drinking water and sewerage. The consolidation projects have positive economic contributions based on a comparison of the present value of the economic gains each year and one time economic gains to be achieved by such projects to the total costs of projects. However, significant developments have been achieved in multi-purpose land consolidation studies in Turkey as well as in developed countries. With multi-purpose land consolidation, it is possible to solve many ownership (shareholding), cadastre, environmental, and social quality at the local level. In this study, firstly the development and macro-effects of land consolidation activities were evaluated and economic, environmental and social effects of projects were evaluated within the framework of the Eskiehir Province, Beyazaltn Village Land Consolidation Project in the second phase and an economic benefit to cost analysis of the projects was made. The current use situation of the land and water resources and the post-project changes in the project area have been examined and the importance of water saving in irrigation areas due to the fact that highest water losses occur during irrigation, the importance of water saving in irrigation areas and the impacts of land consolidation on effective use of irrigation water and water saving and other benefits have been evaluated. The topics of participation of owners and other stakeholders in the planning stages of the projects; development of local measures for rural development; producing maps and data for the region; establishment of a parcel information system; evaluation of state land; cadastral renewal; solution of property problems; creation of large parcels; environmental solutions (such as creating ecological corridors and preserving historic buildings); rehabilitation of irrigation projects; preparation of land use plans; design and construction of in-field services; development and implementation of village settlement plans were examined based on the results of the field study. In principle, there is a requirement to determine the problems with a participatory approach with social survey reports before the projects of consolidation and inquire all related institutions for their opinions. As results, it has been found that current situation analysis work has not been done well in the process of deciding on the implementation of many projects in the last decade and the economic and social impacts expected from the projects have been neglected. In the project area analyzed in these conditions, the land assets and number of parcels of the households, land income and economic, social and environmental impact of the project were analyzed before and after the application and according to the result of benefit-cost analysis, economic contribution of the project was found to be high. In the impact assessment study, both the official institution records and the results of the survey study implemented in the project area were used, and the positive and negative economic, social and environmental impacts of project implementation were listed and suggestions for improvement of the consolidation policies based on problem analysis were put forward.