Selection of compost plant location by K-Means and ARAS methods in TR83 region

While productivity in agricultural lands continues to be the subject of discussion, the evaluation of animal wastes that cause negative environmental effects is an inevitable problem of the modern age. However, these wastes, which are generated from thousands of livestock enterprises, can be used for compost production for the rehabilitation of the soil. The environmental effects caused by these wastes will be minimized, the farmers engaged in planting activities will be able to get higher yields and economic returns will be provided in both respects. Depending on these reasons, this study is carried out to utilize the wastes generated from 123,123 livestock breeding enterprises operating in the provinces of Samsun, Tokat, corum and Amasya, for compost production. Geographical coordinates of all livestock enterprises were determined and these enterprises were divided into 18 cluster categories with K-Means clustering method. ARAS method, which is among the multi-criteria decision-making techniques, was used in order to choose the most available one among these cluster alternatives for an entrepreneur who aims to invest in compost production. The optimum number of 18 clusters to be applied for cluster analysis has been determined by Elbow and f(K) Function methods. SWARA method was used for determination of 6 criteria and the weights of these criteria before the optimality ranking of the cluster alternatives. According to the results obtained, it has been determined that the three most suitable locations for compost production from animal wastes in TR83 Region among 18 cluster alternatives are the Suluova district center of Amasya province, central district of Tokat province and Kussaray village of the corum center.