Land use is an important global issue in terms of preserving the soils, agricultural crop production and farmers' economy as well as the other usage purposes. There are many useful approaches and tools for efficient determination of the land use types. In this study, distribution of different field crops and citrus orchards were monitored and determined for land use types (LUTs) using the low cost ASTER satellite images and GIS in Akarsu Irrigation District of Lower Seyhan Plain (9495 ha) in southern Turkey. Prior to parceling in the field, study area maps of 1:5000 scale were digitized by using ArcGIS software. The enhanced satellite images were overlaid onto the digitized parcel map for ground observations. The images were printed and checked for all crops of the fields. Commonly grown different field crops and orchards were mapped during the field work. A database for this research was established after an intensive field work. The crop types and their coordinates were determined and recorded during the field works. Five LUTs were identified in the study area, and corn and citrus were the most planted LUTs. Furthermore, suitability of soil series for LUTs was investigated; Canakci and Mursel soil series in the study area were found to be highly suitable for all LUTs. It was concluded that cost effective ASTER images could be potentially used for the determination of different crops and orchards which have different reflection values. However, the images must be obtained during the appropriate time period.
