Web Based GIS Consulting Portal with Crop-Land Suitability

Web Based GIS Consulting Portal with Crop-Land Suitability P.K.S.C. Jayasinghe a, Takemi Machida b a Ibaraki University, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan, subashjp@yahoo.com, b Ibaraki University, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan, machida@mx.ac.ibaraki.jp Abstract With the rapid development of web services, Geographic Information System (GIS) has been incorporated into web based systems and making the access of geography data through the web, has become a major consumer attraction worldwide. Web-based GIS supports unlimited users and allows them to interact with the system to collect, manipulate, and retrieve information. Web-based GIS technologies can be promoted to share geospatial data with farming community, plantation sector, and academic community and also it helps to make the best decision with the available information on growing crops. This concept can be successfully applied to web-based online consulting system for crop-land suitability. The purpose of this study is to develop an interactive web-based GIS consulting portal with crop-land suitability analysis, which provides information on Tomato and Cabbage cultivation in Sri Lanka. Soil ph, topography, average annual temperature, and average annual rain fall were considered as important criteria to determine crop-land suitability. Maps for each criteria and District map of Sri Lanka were digitized by using the ArcGIS. The digitized soil, topography, rain fall, and temperature map layers and crop requirement factors were analyzed by GIS spatial analysis tool. Suitability maps were created under four suitability criteria, that is, highly suitable, moderately suitable, marginally suitable, and not suitable. Combination of ASP, VB Script, SQL, GIS, MS Access, Map Server, and Web Server software were used to develop the web portal. Web-based GIS portal was developed to facilitate seeking information on land suitability category with justification, statistical data, and suitability criteria on district basis, and to provide online consulting service from field to marketing, on Tomato and Cabbage. Key words: Web- based GIS, Online Consulting portal, Crop-land suitability, Sri Lanka. 1 Introduction Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are tools for acquiring, managing, analyzing, and presenting spatially related Information. With the development of the World Wide Web (WWW), opportunities arose to organize various resources found on the internet in an efficient and user-friendly manner. One major type of resource is GIS data. Web-based GIS applications are popular among the people as it provides GIS function in the web and gives easy access to spatial data. Thus Most of the GIS applications have

recently been moved from desktop to Web-based. Web-based GIS technologies can be promoted to share geospatial data with farming community, plantation sector, and academic community. This concept can be successfully applied to web-based consulting system for crop-land suitability. Crop-land suitability analysis can be considered as a prerequisite to achieve optimum utilization of the available land resources for sustainable agricultural production. Land suitability analysis is the process to find out whether the land resource is suitable for a specific use or not. Land suitability analysis for sustainable crop production involves the interpretation of data relating to soils, vegetation, topography, climate etc (FAO, 1976). Surface and overlay analyzing capabilities of the GIS can play an important role in evolving alternate scenarios for resource development and management. There is a lack of better management system established to cultivate field vegetables in developing countries. In Sri Lanka some farmers use their practical knowledge for crop cultivation, which is usually being successful. Some plantation companies may require information on average rainfall, temperature, suited soils, and specific locations for specific crops, but no easier and cheaper way to collect such information. Information available in hard format is very difficult to collect and analyze. So they have to spend lots of time and money for consultation and other preliminary investigations. In addition, researchers in Universities and other research institutes require the similar information not only for agricultural research but for many other fields such as economics and management. They are facing the similar difficulties as mentioned above. Therefore this is an urgent need for online consulting system for information on crop-land suitability data for interested parties. The purpose of this study is to develop an interactive web-based GIS consulting portal with crop-land suitability analysis, which provides information on Tomato and Cabbage growing in Sri Lanka. Specially, this system has developed for farmers and other interesting parties who have little experience on information Technology (IT). 2 Methodology In this study, soil ph, topography, average annual rain fall, and average annual temperature were considered as specific crop requirement factors to identify the land suitability according to the FAO (1976) definition. Soil map (Panabokke, 1996), average annual rainfall map, average annual temperature map (1961-1990 data), topography map (IRI, New York), and district map of Sri Lanka were used for the study. Crop requirements criteria collected from literature review and from the Department of Agriculture, Sri Lanka (Agridept, Sri Lanka). Soil map of Sri Lanka and the ph values (Senarath and Dassayayake, 1999a, 1999b; Dassanayake and Hettiarachchi, 1999; Dassanayake, et al, 2005; De Silva, et al, 2005; Dassanayake and De Silva, 2005; Panabooke, 1996) were used to create a soil ph map of Sri Lanka. 2.1 Study area The study area of this research is Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is a tropical island located in Indian Ocean, next to the southern tip of India, between 5 55' and 9 50' North and 79 42' and 81 53' east. Land area is 65,610 km 2. Climate condition of Sri Lanka is suitable for growing crops with wide diversity.

2.2 GIS Analysis and Web Development The paper maps were scanned and screen digitized. Thematic layers of soil, topography, rain fall, temperature and districts were made with the help of Arc GIS. These feature files were integrated in to raster base format and spatial analysis was performed using reclassify and overlay technique. Finally, suitability maps were prepared according to the given criteria with four suitability categories namely, highly suitable, moderately suitable, marginally suitable and not suitable (Fig. 1). A Web-based GIS portal was developed to facilitate searching suitable land area and statistical summaries in districts wise and provide online consulting service allowing to find information on Tomato and Cabbage from field to marketing, based on a client-side ActiveX control and a combination of ASP, VB Script, MS Access, GIS, Map Server and Web Server software (IIS) on the server-side. (Fig. 2) 3 Results Land suitability for tomato and cabbage are determined based on soil ph, climate and topographic variables. Suitability class ratings were considered as highly suitable to not suitable. According to the suitability map, 50,400 hectare of land area in Sri Lanka could be identified as not suitable for growing Tomato which might be due to the high rain fall. Badulla, Moneragala and Anuradhapura districts were identified as highly suitable areas for growing Tomato. Most of the land area in Sri Lanka falls under moderately suitable category for growing Tomato. According to the suitability map 25, 68,900 hectare of land area in Sri Lanka could be identified as not suitable for growing Cabbage which might be due to the high temperature or low elevation. Matale, Kandy and Nuwaraeliya districts were identified as highly suitable areas for growing Cabbage. Most of the land area in Sri Lanka falls under marginally suitable category for growing Cabbage. Paper Maps 1. Scanning Vector layers Rainfall /Temperature Rainfall Data Input Soil Type/Topography 2. Screen Digitizing Temperature Soil types Reclassifications of the thematic layers Topography Highly Suitable -4 Moderately Suitable -3 Data Processing Marginally Suitable -2 Convert to Raster Prepare Soil ph map by Soil Type map, Not Suitable -1 format prepare Slope map by Topography map Suitability maps were created according to the given Weighting and GIS Overlay analysis criteria with four suitability categories Fig. 1 Flow diagram of Crop-Land suitability assessment

Fig. 2 Home page of the web application 4 Discussion 4.1 Online Consulting Services Online services provide an infrastructure in which users can communicate with others, either by exchanging massage or participating in online conferences, such as chat or forums. Most of online services are required to be a subscriber before access the services. Without being subscriber, these online consulting services let users access, as the services are on non-profit basis. In This Web application, there are three types of user friendly online consultation services namely, Live Web Chat, Consulting forum and E-request form. Live web chat allows users to have advices same time from a professional adviser. When the user is probing a problem and does not know what information is needed, the specialist begins a dialogue with the user to frame the problem and specify the request It is easy for users to resolve there problem quickly. The objective of the Consulting forum is to discuss with parties who have common problems, and if someone has the same problem, system facilitates him to perceive the previous discussions. This discussion forum does not require user s E-mail address as this system is developed for peoples who are in developing countries and have less IT experience. E-request form helps the user to upload their questions, and thus, assures secrecy of the user. The reply would be received by email or post depending on their preference. 4.2 GIS MapServer GIS map server has been developed to provide spatial locations for growing Tomato and Cabbage with a suitability ranking from highly suitable to not suitable. User can view the areas on the basis of Districts

and sub divisions in Sri Lanka. UMN MapServer, which is considered as the world s leading open source web mapping tool, is used as the GIS map server. The main feature of UMN MapServer is that users are not required to install any other additional tools to view maps than a standard web browser. Therefore, it is easy for farmers to access MapServer even if they have only a little IT experience. GIS data are given in standard file format.shape and the structure of the map is given by native file format.map, which is used by UMN MapServer, to communicate with the web browser. Clicking a certain area of the map would display information on the district name, suitability category, suitability criteria of the area with general weather conditions, the reason to get low/high production, and last year statistics. This application helps to make the best decision with the available information on growing crops. Therefore this system can be interpreted as a decision making system for farmers and other interesting parties (Fig. 3). 4.3 Crop Consultation Documents Web system has another facility to provide documentary consultation, which are available from field to marketing. Information is provided in HTML format with the latest technologies for growing Tomato and Cabbage in Sri Lanka. 4.2 Statistical Data Statistics data, which are obtained from Department of Census and Statistic, Sri Lanka, has stored in the database. In order to view data, user will need to select all the information such as the District name, year, the growing season, and the name of the crop. Then the result will be displayed in a table. Furthermore user will be able to view the statistical data as a spatial query result in the map server. Fig. 3 Showing the Suitability map of Tomato with Spatial Query Result

5 Conclusions An example of Web based -GIS consulting portal was developed with GIS application for information on crop-land suitability. Web based -GIS consulting portal with crop land suitability can be considered as great support for farmers and other interesting parties for decision making or as a source of information. The GIS and Internet technologies can be efficiently combined as a mechanism to share crop-land information freely and openly. Lack of IT experience prevents farmers from getting electronic information. But this application has attempted to provide user friendly system which helps such farmer to access information and retrieve data without any difficulty. This application has utilized most of the open source components and thus can be considered as a low cost application which will be suited for developing country. References Dassanayake, A.R., Hettiarachchi, L.S.K. 1999. Soils of the Up County wet zone. In: Mapa, R.B., Somasiri, S., Nagarajah, S. (Eds.), Soils of the wet zone of Sri Lanka. Soil Science Society of Sri Lanka, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, pp. 122-138. Dassanayake, A.R., Somasiri, L.L.W., De Silva, G.G.R. 2005. Soils of the low country Intermediate zone. In: Mapa, R.B., Dassanayake, A.R., Nayakekorale, H.B. (Eds.), Soils of the Intermediate zone of Sri Lanka. Soil Science Society of Sri Lanka, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, pp. 53-117. Dassanayake, A.R., De Silva, G.G.R. 2005. Soils of the up country Intermediate zone. In: Mapa, R.B., Dassanayake, A.R., Nayakekorale, H.B. (Eds.), Soils of the Intermediate zone of Sri Lanka. Soil Science Society of Sri Lanka, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, pp. 149-164. Department of Agriculture, Sri Lanka. http://www.agridept.gov.lk/index1.php Last accessed September 2006. De Silva, G.G.R., Dassanayake, A.R., Mapa, R.B. 2005. Soils of the mid country Intermediate zone. In: Mapa, R.B., Dassanayake, A.R., Nayakekorale, H.B. (Eds.), Soils of the Intermediate zone of Sri Lanka. Soil Science Society of Sri Lanka, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, pp. 118-148. FAO, 1976, a frame work for land evaluation (Soils Bulletin No. 32) FAO, Rome. International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI, New York). http://iri.columbia.edu/~mahaweli/ Last accessed May 2006. Panabokke, C. R. 1996. Soils and Agro-Ecological Environments of Sri Lanka, Natural Resource series No.2. Natural Resource, Energy and Science Authority of Sri Lanka, Colombo, pp.35-101. Senarath, A., Dassanayake, A.R. 1999a. Soils of the low country wet zone. In: Mapa, R.B., Somasiri, S., Nagarajah, S. (Eds.), Soils of the wet zone of Sri Lanka. Soil Science Society of Sri Lanka, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, pp. 37-91. Senarath, A., Dassanayake, A.R. 1999b. Soils of the mid country wet zone. In: Mapa, R.B., Somasiri, S., Nagarajah, S. (Eds.), Soils of the wet zone of Sri Lanka. Soil Science Society of Sri Lanka, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, pp. 92-121.