AgroDSS: A decision support system for agriculture and farming

Abstract

Decision support systems, data analysis and data mining have become significant tools for improving business in professional world. The emerging technologies are making the precision agriculture omnipresent and allow potential for enriching it with computer-assisted decision support systems for farm management. In this paper we describe a novel system AgroDSS that bridges the gap between agricultural systems and state-of-the-art decision support methodology. The described system is intended for integration into the existing farm management information systems and provides a cloud-based decision support toolbox, allowing farmers to upload their own data, utilize several data analysis methods and retrieve their outputs. The implemented tools include predictive modeling with explanation, accuracy evaluation, time series clustering and decomposition, and structural change detection. They can help users make predictions for simulated scenarios and better understand the dependencies (interactions) within their domain. We apply the AgroDSS system on a case study of pest population dynamics, illustrating the potential for its use.