Classification and geovisualization process of soil data using a web-based spatial information system

Dániel Balla,Tamás Mester,Tibor József Novák,Emőke Kiss,Marianna Zichar,Gergő Karancsi

doi:10.1515/opag-2020-0054

Abstract

Abstract Because of the increased demand for information, the scientific community have published their results on the Internet over the last 20 years, adapting to society requirements. Due to the development of web-based spatial information soil systems, access to data on various themes and of varying quality has become substantially easier. The focus of our paper is to demonstrate a freely accessible and usable web-based soil database and soil information system (Soil Information and Soil Classifier System), which is suitable for geovisualization uploaded soil data and for determining reference soil groups (RSGs) in accordance with the World Reference Base of Soil Resources (WRB; RSG). In order to achieve this, we algorithmized the diagnostic soil classification process of the WRB, then we created decision trees to correspond input soil data to the WRB system. In order to facilitate geovisualization of the spatial data, the Keyhole Markup Language file format supported by Google API was applied.

Highlights

Soil classification concerns the grouping of soils with a similar range of properties into genetic or diagnostic units (FAO 2006)
Our aim was to plan and develop a freely accessible and usable web-based soil database and soil information system (SISCS, Soil Information and Soil Classifier System), which is suitable for the geovisualization of uploaded soil data and for determining reference soil groups (RSGs) in accordance with the World Reference Base of Soil Resources (WRB) (RSG)
SISCS Guest users can list the soil profile data stored in the database and they can even download soil data

Summary

Introduction

Soil classification concerns the grouping of soils with a similar range of properties (chemical, physical and biological) into genetic or diagnostic units (FAO 2006). It follows from this that it is an important element of soil research and data processing, serving mainly as an organizational framework for the description of soil properties (Shi et al 2010; Gray et al 2011; Pásztor et al 2012). At the Congress, researchers emphasized that by creating the WRB, the goal is not the development of a new soil classification system, but rather the harmonization of the different national systems (Michéli et al 2006). Over the past two decades, numerous attempts have been made to harmonize the soil databases of different origins with the WRB (Bockheim and Gennadiyev 2000; Albrecht et al 2004; Reintam and Köster 2006; Roca et al 2008; Shi et al 2010; Láng et al 2013; Huyssteen et al 2014) and to reclassify the (archived) national soil

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Conclusion