A web-based GIS enabled soil information system for the United Arab Emirates and its applicability in agricultural land use planning

Abstract

A comprehensive soil information system was identified as essential for land use planning decisions, especially for sustainable agriculture and natural resources conservation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The lack of such a system limits the capacity of government, businesses, policy makers, and land users to make sustainable land use planning decisions, and considerably hampers land degradation assessments and adaptive sustainable land management interventions. This paper presents a solution developed to disseminate value-added soil information gathered from soil surveys, enabling decision makers, policy formulators, land use planners, and agriculturalists to efficiently manage soil resources. The UAE Soil Information System (UAESIS, www.uaesis.ae ) is a web-based repository of soil data with geographical representation and provides descriptive, quantitative, and geographical data in a simple interface. The system has a number of components including a geospatial soil database, a field operating system, and a highly intuitive web-based secure application. This paper highlights the structure, capabilities, functions, benefits, applications, and uses of the UAESIS. Two case studies demonstrate the application of the system to evaluation of land suitable for date palm production and the growth of salt tolerant crops are presented