CROWIS: A System for Sharing and Integrating Crop and Weather Data

Abstract

A web-based system for sharing and integration of crop data and weather data called CROWIS was developed to allow users upload their experimental data and download the merged and integrated data in spreadsheet format. The system was designed based on a hybrid of MVC (Model, View and Controller) and SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) design pattern and composed of a web application and three services of MetBroker, Google Maps and Rice Data Service. User can upload crop data in spreadsheet format, and then these data are merged with data from other locations in the database. Crop data can be queried from Rice Data Service and be integrated with weather data by way of MetBroker based on specified locations and then be downloaded as a spreadsheet file. By using Google Maps service, user can register the latitude and longitude information of a new location. Successful uploading of 37 spreadsheet rice data files indicated that the upload and merging function of CROWIS is operational. A total of 184 rice properties of 151072 records containing information of 6486 different varieties and lines collected from 256 different experiment locations from 1980 to 2004 had been stored in rice database. The results of various combinations of rice data queries and data integrations with weather data indicated that CROWIS is robust and stable enough for users to download merged rice data and/or integrated data files. With this system, people in experimental fields can easily share and integrate their most recent and valuable experimental data sets. Researchers and modelers can easily obtain the merged and integrated data. These data are helpful to test and verify existing models, improve parameter estimations and simplify construction of new models. The system is accessible at http://www.agmodel.org/CROWIS/