2016 Intl. Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), Sept.
21-24, 2016, Jaipur, India
Sensible approach for Soil Fertility Management
using GIS Cloud
Leena H U1, Premasudha B G1
1. Department of Master of Computer Application
Siddaganga Institute of Technology
Tumkur-572103, INDIA
e-mail:leenahu@sit.ac.in
Abstract— GIS embedded cloud storage of spatial data plays
a significant role in current agricultural field. An alternative
approach to our traditional method of soil fertility management
in decision making processes using GIS Cloud (Geographic
Information System) is a novel idea for e-governance and m-
governance. In recent years, many researchers have studied the
importance of cloud–computing in various sectors for storing
large amount of data and GIS as a separate concept in viewing
the spatial maps. The main objective of this study is to suggest a
complete Decision Support System (DSS) using GIS enabled
cloud technologies to administer agricultural related data
required for soil fertility management based on different
criteria’s like crop, season, soil type, seed varieties, etc. The
proposed DSS includes development of geo-referenced soil
fertility maps showing distributions of soil nutrients and their
spatial variability to provide fertilizer recommendations using
Soil Test Crop Response (STCR) equations for targeted yield
approach for different crops in India.
Keywords—GIS Cloud;architecture for fertilizer management
and recommendations;DSS;e-governance;m-governance
I. INTRODUCTION
Agriculture in India needs to be improvised in
implementing latest technologies basically a spatial noticeable
fact which is not autonomous of location. Geographic
Information System (GIS) is the current technology to handle
various spatial maps and databases. These latest technologies
allows to observe and survey a wider collection of agricultural
related data such as different crops, soil type, variety of seeds,
climatic conditions, and a mixture of socio-economic variables
concurrently and accurately. Integration of GIS technology
into cloud together emerges as a crucial model for capturing,
uploading and maintaining the new promising web
applications in agricultural sectors [1]. The application of
Information Technology in various sectors has brought great
impact especially in agricultural sector. The proposed
approach of agricultural information development and
integration system ensures that complete agricultural related
data on cloud database can be integrated into spatial maps
through GIS technologies, to organize, accumulate, and
administer geospatial data in a cloud database according to
individual farmer land information for improving data
accuracy of digital agriculture fertilizer management.
978-1-5090-2029-4/16/$31.00 @2016 IEEE
Basavaraja P K2
2. Department of Soil Science & Agricultural Chemistry,
University of Agriculture Sciences
Bangalore-560065, Karnataka, INDIA
A web GIS based decision support system can be used to
categorize and evaluate the spatial data, capturing and
uploading the geo-referenced data. Addressing the problems
related to farmers spatio-temporal variability of various
agriculture related natural resources and the usage of
fertilizers by farmers during the cultivation period completely
rely on performance of proposed agricultural systems. The
proposed approach allows the DSS to gather, evaluate, and
display spatial data on cloud that helps to store enormous
amount of data and ease of access at right time. The main
objective of this paper is to discuss how cutting edge
technologies like cloud computing, geospatial analysis,
environmental modeling, and precision analytical technologies
can be used together to help and facilitate more effective
agriculture management.
A. Related Work
The prime source of national income in India comes
mainly from agricultural sector. Agriculture is the backbone of
India’s economy. About 70% of Indian population is directly
involved in agricultural sector. GIS Cloud Computing is
involved in computing services and a flexible model along
with spatial data rather than the product. Cloud computing
provides maximum facility to store enormous amount of data
remotely and use that data on demand. An effective utilization
of the GIS based cloud technology mainly in precision
farming has great impact on agriculture.
Some of the agricultural systems developed particularly in
India are with limited usability and functionality as per the
recent researchers study. The correlated work of existing
agricultural systems is explained in brief in this section.
Geographical Agriculture Information System (GAIS) [1]
is triggered by pervasive applications of sensors and real-
world challenges and complexities to the Wireless Sensors and
Actuator Networks’ (WSAN) application and use of advanced
GIS tools along with the bundle of agricultural applications all
together to form a complete GIS based agriculture system.
The researchers proposed a farm management system
functional architecture [2] using advanced features of internet
by focusing the farming procedures and techniques to
substitute the information among the farmers, government
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 2016 Intl. Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), Sept. 21-24, 2016, Jaipur, India

agencies and NGOs. Additionally, this proposed architecture Framework farmers in

also describes the method for improved supervision for some for weather
Agriculturists forecasting,
of the tasks of farmers without using the dynamic smart on Mobile and crop
approach. Platform [11] analysis.
The researchers [3] explain about the cloud computing as Cloud Static/ No Crop No Yes
advanced approach in managing the data, storing and from Computing limited
based
desktops to huge data repositories at low cost sites. This
Livestock
approach represents application programs and data as service Monitoring
through Internet. and Disease
Forecasting
The authors in [4] have provided an inspirational approach System [12]
of developing the GIS based cloud computing to enhance
Proposed Dynamic Yes (User Crop, Yes Yes
server’s efficiency, reducing the computational cost and Decision friendly web Soil,
storage, rapid processing and computing of the data Support application, season,
unlimitedly, huge amount of storage capacity and to increasing System( Soil spatial data variety of
the efficiency and consistency of the system. Fertility maps, seeds,
Management) reduces fertilizer
Agriculture embedded with GIS [5] plays important role in cost, time, recommen
decision making applications, prediction intelligence, simulate Resource dations,
climate change applications, cropping pattern analysis, pest Utilization, Productivi
increases ty and
management, nitrogen management, using authentic computing Irrigation
management to moderate soil sampling errors, yield data and ability, easy
its monitoring, weed management, fertility management and accessibility
soil salinity mapping etc. , Farmer
Satisfaction,
In this paper [6], authors explain the advantages of using improves
cloud computing technology to help in agricultural economic
development of China. growth of
farmer and
In Agriculture Land Suitability Evaluator (ALSE) model nation,
[7], crop-specific conditions are identified using spatial and helps e-
governance)
temporal data which are methodically computed with
maximum potential. This framework would help farmers to
make composite decisions towards smart agriculture. II. GIS CLOUD ARCHITECTURE FOR SOIL FERTILITY
The Comparitive study of current farming systems with MANAGEMENT
proposed GIS Cloud DSS is presented in Table 1. Current agricultural systems have some limitations and are
TABLE I. Comparative study of current farming systems with proposed not competent enough to accomplish the requirements of day-
GIS Cloud DSS to-day activities in Indian farming. The important factors and
Agricultu Agric requirements limiting in the existing systems are minimum
Limitation ral ultur data processing speed, restrictions in terms of data storage
Resour
Existing Mechan with Domain al
ce
capacity, data consistency, accessibility, availability,
Agriculture isms of respect to Data
Manag scalability etc. The farmers are not habituated with the
System Systems quality of Categ available computerized agricultural systems efficiently. To
ement
service orizat
ion
solve the current difficulties faced by farmers in farming, an
Agriculture Static/ Yes Soil Yes No immediate action is required in developing a GIS cloud based
Land limited
(Suitability) DSS and the final outcome of the system should serve the
Suitability complete agriculture system as a service (AaaS). The design
Evaluator [7] target of GIS Cloud architecture is to recognize the integrated
Farm Static/ No Pest and No No organization and management of gigantic, scattered and
Management Crop heterogeneous agricultural soil fertility management resource.
limited
Information
Systems in Fig.1 shows the proposed architecture of the GIS cloud
Precision and usage of GIS services in the cloud service layer. It is
Agriculture mainly composed for agricultural resources with the four
[8]
layers: user interface layer, transport layer, application layer
Web-based Static/ No Efficiency No No and physical layer.
Agricultural limited
Support
Systems [9]
AgroMobile - Static/ Yes (Data Crop Yes No
A Cloud- limited accuracy)
helps Fig. 1. GIS Cloud Architecture for Soil Fertility Management
Based

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 2016 Intl. Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), Sept. 21-24, 2016, Jaipur, India

Department, University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS),

Gandhi Krishi Vignana Kendra (GKVK), Government of
Karnataka, India) for different crops according to which
calculations are performed for individual farmer land and soil
information. The farmer needs to just select the crop type,
season, variety and soil type as input values and on click, the
calculations are performed to provide precise fertilizer
recommendations. These proposed applications emphasize use
of numerical calculations, spatial maps and not much text
information, which helps farmers to use the application
without any difficulty and minimize the language problems to
a certain extent to farmers.

A. GIS Server
Implementation of GIS tools in cloud servers helps in
improving data visualization and decision making process and
is considered to be a novel approach to agricultural sector. The
spatial maps can display spatial correlations and site specific
available nutrient values for each locations of the farming land
and the speed of accessing these information will be more
efficient in cloud. Moreover, web based GIS DSS can be an
incredible tool for collaboration between farmers and e-
governance/NGOs.
Fig. 2. Interfaces between Saas and Paas layers

A. User Interface Layer

This layer is also identified as end user layer. In this layer,
the users/farmers interact with the GIS cloud. In GIS cloud,
the farmers can generally access cloud resources through
networked client devices, such as desktops, laptops, tablets,
smart phones and kiosk machines. In this layer, farmer
personal and land information data is stored into cloud. The
soil test data of individual farmer based on land are stored and
uploaded by soil analysts in the Soil Test Laboratories (STLs)
by using the proposed web GIS app. This data is collected,
captured, and uploaded into GIS cloud.

B. Transport Layer Software as a Service –(Saas)

In transport layer, multiple devices, services, packages and
spatial data are integrated on cloud. The farmers basically
obtain a service through SMS alerts. For every transaction,
SMS alerts are sent to the farmers. Fertilizer recommendations
are provided based on the available soil test data for the
selected crop type, season, variety, and soil type by utilizing
these services.
B. Combination of Spatial map in the cloud will make
The key services used in this layer include GIS servers and tremendous DSS for agricultural soil fertility management.
computing the STCR equations to provide the precise fertilizer The key values are:
recommendations. The interface between the Saas and Paas
layers is demonstrated in Fig.2. • The enormous agricultural information [farmer’s
personal data, land information data, soil test analysis
data, etc] needs to be uploaded into relational database
III. STCR EQUATIONS USAGE AND IMPLEMENTATIONS server and GIS server.
The proposed web application is specially designed to
provide fertilizer recommendations using Soil Test Crop • The advanced GIS tools to create polygons, lines and
Response (STCR) equations for targeted yield approach for points and adding latitude and longitude positions of
different crops. They contain pre-calculated equations each farmer’s land and to display available soil nutrient
developed by STCR team (Soil Test Crop Response (STCR) values are helpful in improving the data visualization
process etc.

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 2016 Intl. Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), Sept. 21-24, 2016, Jaipur, India
• Integration and making it accessible online in web
based GIS DSS.
• The main challenge is to make the web based GIS DSS
more interactively and to find the best approach for
sharing large raster datasets with farmers without
experience in GIS and presenting in farmers regional
language, together with improving the process so that
farmers get the most accurate fertilizer
recommendations in a more efficient way.
C. Application Layer as a service (Paas)
Application layer is embedded with an operating system
platform for hosting various applications. These solutions are
involved in hosting the development tools into cloud which
are involved in web development and these web applications
are accessed through a web browser. Integration of GIS
software, web application software (VB.NET), open source
spatial database (POSTGIS), etc to the cloud is done in this
layer. The processing of data, storing the data, formulating
intelligent STCR equations, data mining, performance tuning
and spatial data analysis is performed in this layer. The
application layer is composed of four tiers of layers as:
• Communication Layer: The interface between the
users and the servers are communicated in this layer.
This layer will be in charge of overseeing and
managing all the process related to communication
within the GIS Cloud framework.
• Configuration Layer: This layer is to perform the
system setup administration, storage component and
complete configuration management of the GIS Cloud
framework which helps to maintain the performance
and consistency in processing of the system.
• Utility Layer: This layer involves gathering of
software utilities, requirements to maintain the
processing speed of the application, optimization,
system logging, data conversion, schedulers, data
compression, etc.
• Logic Layer: This layer is considered to be the heart
of the complete system. It performs major calculations,
computing STCR equations, business logic, and data
accessing logic.
D. Physical Layer as a service (Iaas)
The physical layer which represents the infrastructure
involved in complete development of the web application is
built virtually by presenting the virtual servers as a service to
users. The customers who will be using the virtual
infrastructures are billed. This reduces the cost of purchasing
unnecessary hardware, physical servers or data storage
systems. In this layer, the developers can build web
applications as per their specifications and can finally deploy
the developed applications into the GIS cloud virtualized
server without any specialized system administration skills.
Later, the web application can be viewed with the help of
IaaS, works as an interactive complete DSS and manages the
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resources dynamically based on the recognized requirements
of the agricultural systems in soil fertility management.
E. Advantages of using GIS Cloud in Soil Fertility
Management
The physical layer which represents the infrastructure
involved in complete development of the web application is
built virtually by presenting the virtual servers as a service to
users. The customers who will be using the virtual
infrastructures are billed. This reduces the cost of purchasing
unnecessary hardware, physical servers or data storage
systems. In this layer, the developers can build web
applications as per their specifications and can finally deploy
the developed applications into the GIS cloud virtualized
server without any specialized system administration skills.
Later, the web application can be viewed with the help of
IaaS, works as an interactive complete DSS and manages the
resources dynamically based on the recognized requirements
of the agricultural systems in soil fertility management.
• The agricultural data needs to be collected by
individual farmers and managed by the application
service provider, a team of professionals with the aim
of promising a better and organized maintenance of
agricultural data.
• This provides agricultural data from the GIS based
cloud database to all farmers, e-governance, NGOs at
any time and at any location.
• This application makes the communication between
different farmers much faster, easier and cheaper. The
communication needs to be made in regional language
for better understanding.
• Analysts can use the spatial maps for capturing the
field data with the help of mobile data collection
system to locate the cultivated land and soil samples
are taken (marked in yellow) along with attaching land
photos directly to the marked location. This
information along with geo-referenced data will be
updated with the survey results to the proposed web
GIS Cloud DSS, making all the data available on this
system. This will help in improving yield and
economic growth of individual farmers in the state and
automatically improves economic growth of the
country.
• The application motivates the farmers and e-
governance to get involved more and more into
agriculture as more than 50% of population in India is
mainly dependent in Agriculture and will result in
overall development of agriculture in the nation.
IV. PROPOSED SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE OF SOIL
FERTILITY MANAGEMENT
The Proposed solution includes a web based GIS Cloud
DSS and mobile app comprising of agricultural data stored in
GIS cloud is engaged to gather, categorize, store and manage
geospatial agricultural data in cloud for implementing,
maintaining and distributing the accuracy of agricultural data
 2016 Intl. Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), Sept. 21-24, 2016, Jaipur, India
to digital information for Indian farmers. The agriculture cloud
system built considers GIS as main tool to geoprocess
agriculture-related information to include soil, land and
fertilizer application management.
GIS Cloud technology helps to categorize agricultural
decision support data in the cloud database based on
individual land of farmers, survey numbers (Unique
identification), and mobile numbers. These classified
agriculture data will be used to display fertilizer information
for each crop type selected based on the criteria [crop type,
season, variety, soil type]. By this approach, the most efficient
soil fertilizer management can be built. The proposed system
is categorized into different modules to manage the system
efficiently. The proposed architecture is as illustrated in Fig. 2.
Fig. 3. Proposed System Architecture of Soil Fertility Management
A. Data Collection & Capture Model
Data collection is the method where all historical data
entries and current data are available. The geo-reference data
inputs including survey no, latitude, longitude, crop type,
season, variety of seeds, soil type, and season is captured. This
information initially is provided by GKVK team based on the
latest research by Soil Test Crop Response (STCR)
Department, University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS),
Gandhi Krishi Vignana Kendra (GKVK), Government of
Karnataka India. The individual farmer’s with the help of soil
analysts/NGOs can add/update the geo-referenced data and
other information to get optimum fertilizer recommendations
based on latest information.
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B. Design and Build Module
Designing and building spatial databases for agriculture in
cloud for fertilizer recommendation management is the key
challenge. This support system can be made a most tailored
DSS based on GIS. This involves the following process.
• Integrating and inducing the individual spatial maps of
farmers, image processing, capturing geo-referenced
data for land use mainly for soil nutrient analysis and
land evaluation.
• Fertilizer recommendation and expected yield, spatial
data analysis of soil nutrients, prediction model and
crop management strategies using STCR equations and
simulation of nutrient variations with spatial data maps.
• Thematic display showing status of fertilizer usage and
available soil nutrients in cultivable areas for individual
farmer.
• Generation of application of fertilizer status reports
periodically along with complete harvesting period.
• Sending advisory for application of fertilizer based on
soil reports to increase yield based on intelligent inputs
from DSS analytical module.
• Field level soil data collection and input the data into
the proposed web application and generating soil
analysis report.
• Soil nutrient variations representing in geospatial maps
for immediate advice and attention. Nutrient variations
and fertilizer application for each soil type involves
data monitoring and analysis.
• A technical advice for farmers on usage of web
application and to e-governance with respect to
distribution of fertilizers.
C. Reporting Module
In this module, data analysis of complete agricultural
captured datasets can be done. A different statistical method
based on nutrient spatial distribution can be used for
prediction analysis in usage of soil nutrients. By using
different GIS tools, captured and historical data can be
analyzed based on necessary statistical methods is helpful for
farmers to get most efficient recommendations in soil fertilizer
management. The analysis of nutrients required for land is
displayed on spatial data with color variations for pictorial
understanding which helps farmers to have clear picture on
application of fertilizers for the respected area.
Ɣ Advisory & Prediction Module
Ɣ Recommendations can be given to individual farmers
for each land based on the inputs from multiple sources
to proposed web application
Ɣ Based on meteorological data inputs from external web
service, advice can be provided.
Ɣ Soil test data used in fertilizer recommendations and
soil sample data collected using external resources.
 2016 Intl. Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), Sept. 21-24, 2016, Jaipur, India
Ɣ Report to e-governance with respect to fertilizer
distribution provides the exact amount of fertilizers to
distribute for each state.
CONCLUSION
The proposed solution achieves in faster decision making
system that employs GIS Cloud server to incorporate,
integrate, store, update and manage complete information of
agriculture. This drastically enhances integrity and accuracy of
agriculture related digital information as data is stored on
cloud. The individual farmers can get fertilizer
recommendations and crop yield prediction using STCR
equations for vivid land scale farmers. The simulation of
nutrient variations in combination with spatial information
benefits farmers to get better picture on their nutrient values of
soil for each land. This helps farmers to make decisions on
their own in application of fertilizers. By following this
approach, farmers can get high yield, improve their economic
condition and maintain their soil health which in turn
improves economic condition of the country. E-governance
also gets benefited by viewing the spatial nutrient variation of
soil state wise helps in fertilizer distribution as huge amount of
fertilizers is distributed every year in the country.
Acknowledgment
We would gratefully acknowledge AICRP on STCR (Soil
Test Crop Response (STCR), Bangalore Center, University of
Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Gandhi Krishi Vignana Kendra
(GKVK), Bangalore for providing the geo-referenced data
collected from farmer’s field, STCR equations and in future to
help in field trials.
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