Agriculture is integrally a geographic practice that leads to its extensive utilization of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Many agricultural enterprises are utilizing this technology to enhance productivity, reduce cost, and improve agricultural-related decision making. Additionally, the technology is also used to prevent diseases and improve agricultural activities (Nutter, et al., 2002). The essay aims at elaborating applications of GIS in agriculture.
Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) is amongst the application of GIS in agriculture. Database systems are established through this system, which records the actual use of land parcels within a specific area. These records purpose at providing the picture of how the land is used for agricultural production regardless of the crop type grown in the area (Sladić, Radulović and Govedarica, 2014).
Through GIS-based logical integration of information regarding agricultural land, including productivity, terrain characteristics, crop suitability, and capability of the land, cropping pattern plans, and the most appropriate agrarian land use are established. Such information allows farmers to plant crops with the highest yields hence increase in crop production (Santosh and Suresh, 2016). Additionally, GIS is utilized in land suitability assessment through land suitability classification; this is achieved through the assessment and grouping of land according to their suitability for a specific use. The suitability is achieved through assessing crop requirements and land characteristics including soil types (Ismail, Ghaffar and Azzam, 2012).
GIS is also utilized in the valuation of irrigation performances of dairy pasture, through the use GIS models, the relationship between evapotranspiration rates obtained from the satellite images and vegetation indices are established through which agricultural irrigation status of the land are established (Abuzar, Whitfield, and Mcallister, 2017). Additionally, GIS is applied in management of irrigation system through GIS Database, different data layers each containing different information including annual rainfall of an area, irrigation systems available, crops grown, soil type and the terrain of the land are analyzed to provide area’s most suitable for irrigation (Krishnaveni and Rajeswari, 2014).
In conclusion, GIS is a versatile tool utilized agricultural activities including, evaluation of irrigation performance, identification of suitable land parcels for agriculture, and analyzing the characteristic of the land.
References:
Abuzar, M., Whitfield, D. and Mcallister, A., 2017. Farm Level Assessment of Irrigation Performance for Dairy Pastures in the Goulburn-Murray District of Australia by Combining Satellite-Based Measures with Weather and Water Delivery Information. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 6(8), p.239.
Ismail, M., Ghaffar, M.A. and Azzam, M.A., 2012. GIS application to identify the potential for certain irrigated agriculture uses on some soils in Western Desert, Egypt. The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Science, 15(1), pp. 39-51.
Krishnaveni, M. and Rajeswari, A., 2014. GIS Technology for Agricultural Management of Tank Irrigation Systems in South India. International Journal of Advanced Remote Sensing and GIS, 3(1), pp. 723 - 733.
Nutter, F., et al., 2002. Use of geospatially-referenced disease and weather data to improve site-specific forecasts for Stewart's disease of corn in the US corn belt. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 37(1-3), pp.7-14.
Santosh, K. and Suresh, B., 2016. A web GIS-based decision support system for agriculture crop monitoring system - A case study from part of Medak district. Journal of Remote Sensing and GIS, 5(4).
Sladić, D., Radulović, A. and Govedarica, M., 2014. Application of service-oriented GIS in agriculture. Research Journal of Agricultural Science, 46(3).
Comments