A Practical Demonstration of use of GIS in Precision Agriculture

1. Regional Centre for Training in Aerospace Surveys (RECTAS)
Off Road 1, Obafemi Awolowo University Campus, P.M.B. 5545, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI)
Training Workshop
Theme: “Spatial Data Infrastructure Capacity Building for West-African Professionals”
(Date: 22nd – 28th May, 2011)
Practical Demonstration on
GIS in Land Suitability Mapping
for Precision Farming
by
Enaruvbe, G.O.

2. Goals of GIS in Precision Farming
• Improve soil management techniques
• Improve yield per hectare of farmland
• Improve profit per farm input
• Decision support for efficient management of
farming input

3. Goals of GIS in Precision Farming
• GIS can also be applied in other aspects of
farming
– Precision fertilizer application
– Productivity estimation
– Monitoring crop diseases
– Among many other areas

4. Goals of GIS in Precision Farming
• The goal of this presentation is to
demonstrate the use of ArcGIS in soil
suitability evaluation.
• Available dataset include geo-referenced soil
data
• This is saved in a folder “soil25052011”on the
desktop of your computer.

5. Expected Result of this Exercise
• At the end of this exercise, we should be able
to identify areas that are suitable, moderately
suitable and highly suitable for the production
of crop ‘X` based on soil characteristics only

6. Launch ArcGIS 9.x
Program| ArcGIS | ArcCatalog

7. Launch ArcGIS 9.x

8. Connect to Folder containing the data
File | Connect folder | Navigate to “soil25052011” on the desktop

9. Connect to Folder containing the data
File | Connect folder | Navigate to “soil25052011” on the desktop

10. Connect to Folder containing the data
File | Connect folder | Navigate to “soil25052011” on the desktop

11. Connect to Folder containing the data

12. Lunch ArcMap
Tools | ArcMap

13. Launch ArcMap

14. Lunch ArcMap
OK

15. Add Data
File | Add Data

16. Add Data
Double click “sOIL PROP.xls”

17. Add Data
Select Sheet$1 | Add

18. Add Data
Display XY Data
Right-click the theme display on the TOC to the left and select Display XY Data

19. Click Edit

20. Click select…

21. Double click Geographic Coordinate Systems

22. Double click World

23. Double Click WGS 1984.prj & click Ok until points are displayed on the ArcMap screen

24. Add Data
Select sheet$1 Events

25. Convert data from events to theme
Right Click sheet$1 | Data | export data. This converts the sheet$1 event to shapefile

26. The theme that appears now is a shapefile

27. Raster Data Interpolation
In ToolsBox, 3D Analyst | Raster interpolation | Krigging
(you can also use IDW)

28. Double click Krigging

29. Data Interpolation
Select shapefile theme ( not event) to interpolate e.g. Sample | for Z value
pick the property of interest e.g. pH then OK

30. Interpolated Surface
Output is a surface interpolation of pH-Value

31. Interpolated Surface
• Repeat steps in slides 26-30 for all
the properties you want to include as
criteria in the suitability evaluation.

32. Reclass soil
Raster Reclass | Reclassify

33. Data Classification
Raster Reclass | Double click Reclassify

34. Select Layer to Reclass
Input raster select raster to reclass e.g. pH | Classify

35. Data Classify
Select input raster | Click Classify

36. Classification method choose equal interval | class
choose the number of classes desired e.g. 3 then OK

37. Classification method choose equal interval | class
choose the number of classes desired e.g. 3 then OK

38. Output of reclass operation

39. Reclass
• Repeat steps in slides 32-38 to
reclass all the criteria required

40. Overlay Operation
Raster Math | double click Plus

41. Overlay Operation
Select reclassified criteria e.g. pH reclass and P reclass as two criteria for overlay

42. • Repeat steps in slide 40 & 41, but always take
the result of the last overlay operation as
input 1 and any other criteria as input two.
• Do this till you satisfy all criteria of interest e.g
overlay of N, P, K and Yield
• This means you keep increasing the criteria
and you classes are likely to keep changing as
you do that.
•

43. Label the Classes
Right click the reclass theme | open attribute table| Options | Add Events

44. Name e.g. Classes| Type is text| OK

45. Edit Table
Editor | Start Editing. You may be prompted for the folder to edit. Choose the arcinfo
workspace folder

46. Identify Classes
Double click on the cells under classes and type in Suitability classes e.g.
Highly suitable, moderately suitable, suitable or not suitable,

47. You now stop editing and close dialogue box

48. Double Click Reclass on TOC| click symbology| unique values | select “classes” from drop down

49. Soil Suitability Map Showing Classes

50. THANK YOU!