Spatial Distribution and Concentration Dynamics of Apricot Production in the Districts of Malatya (2004–2024)

Mehmet Özcanlı

doi:10.24925/turjaf.v14i9.2639-2653.9200

Authors

Mehmet Özcanlı Harran University, Faculty of Science and Letters, Department of Geography, 63200, Şanliurfa, Turkiye https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2228-8298

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24925/turjaf.v14i9.2639-2653.9200

Keywords:

Malatya, Apricot, Spatial clustering, Intra-provincial concentration, Elevation zonation

Abstract

This study aims to analyse, within the framework of human–physical geography interaction, the spatial relocation displayed by apricot production clusters across the districts and elevation belts of Malatya — the indisputable centre of Türkiye's apricot production — over the 2004–2024 period. Malatya carries a sharp morphological contrast between a tectonic depression plain (the Battalgazi-Yeşilyurt floor, ~850–950 m) and the plateaus extending from the mountainous masses 1,400–2,241 m in height that surround this plain to the north, west and south; this contrast constitutes the principal spatial variable of the study. The research uses twenty years of panel data compiled from the province- and district-level crop production statistics of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK); the analysis is supported by geographic information systems (GIS)-based mapping, intra-provincial concentration ratios (CR1, CR3), the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) and the location-quotient (LQ) approach. The findings show that the distribution of production across the 14 districts is non-stationary: following the catastrophic 2014 spring frost, the intra-district HHI value rose from 1,089 to 1,563 as production concentrated in a small number of relatively sheltered districts, whereas by 2024 the HHI fell back to 1,317 as production re-dispersed — but around a centre that had shifted from the plain to the plateau. Two geographic drivers of the spatial shift are identified: climate-change-driven phenological advancement increasing frost risk on the valley floors and steering growers toward the 1,200–1,900 m high plateaus (Akçadağ, Darende, Hekimhan); and, simultaneously, the loss of Class I and II alluvial land on the Battalgazi plain to agriculture under the pressure of urban sprawl. The results reveal that the apricot cluster is not a geographic constant but a dynamic spatial system continuously repositioned by climatic and anthropogenic pressures, and that micro-zoning, elevation-sensitive agricultural support and geographical-indication governance must take this dynamism into account.

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