Developing a mobile GIS application related to the collection of land data in soil mapping studies

Abstract

Soil is the one of the most important natural resources having direct and indirect effects on human life, foremost on food supply. Moreover, two of the most important sources used in many sectors such as agriculture, forestry, environment, planning, related to the conservation of soil, are soil maps and soil reports. There is a need for proper and up-to-date soil maps produced with support of technology to achieve sustainable management of land and soil successfully. In order to facilitate the collection of soil data on site in a correct, fast and reliable way in soil survey and mapping studies, and therefore to produce soil maps with high accuracy, a mobile GIS application called “Soil Data System” was developed in this study to work in mobile devices which are driven by Android 5.0 and above. The developed application was tested in “Abadan Erosion Control Project” implementation area, which is located in the boundaries of Ankara, Turkey and was completed in 2016 within the General Directorate of Forestry of The Republic of Turkey, and various findings were obtained after comparing the application with classical soil survey and mapping studies. As a result of the analyzes, it was observed that Soil Data System contributed positively to soil mapping process in many aspects such as accuracy, transparency and time.