which can use to study relations among soil, crop, and water. The database can help
better understand the soil physical, chemical, and biological attributes and dynamics
behind. Due to the long-term sensing, several databases of soil are available already,
such as the European Soil Database,
3 Harmonized World Soil Database,
4 ISRIC soil
data hub,
5 National Soil Database (NSDB) of Canada,
6 State Soil Geographic
(STATSGO) DataBase,
7 Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO)
8 of USDA,
and National Soils Database of New Zealand.
9 They contain vector and attribute
data, which tags the soil with very detailed hierarchy, and provide sound instructions
guiding users to apply in agriculture. Many websites are built to facilitate the access
to the soil data such as the SoilGrid.
10 The data in these databases are measured by in
situ sensors and archived via some collection channels. The databases are mainly
point-oriented and the resolution is out of concern. They are freely available online
for ordering. Agricultural users can either use these existing databases or
employ their own sensors to obtain more accurate and concurrent information
from the field. Modern technique makes both feasible.
4.2.4 Manual Reports
Manual reporting is the ancient way to gather information by authorities. Unbelievably, we still walk down the same road today. The principal nature of the reporters
and consumers doesn’t change much. But the patterns, processes, and channels are
dramatically reconstructed. The existence of information and communication technologies (ICT) (Aker 2011; De Silva and Ratnadiwakara 2008; Meera et al. 2004)
like wireless network and the Internet makes the exchange rapidly completed. The
reporters are usually the farmers themselves. They have to fill in information tables
and submit them to the government to request for authorization or approval of
actions, such as burning authorization, subsidies, wildland fire prevention, landowner assistance, bare root tree seedling orders, etc. Actually a lot of people are
working on collecting agricultural information and broadcasting to either agricultural or nonagricultural stakeholders (Chhachhar et al. 2014). A recently launched
activity called citizen science has encouraged citizens to engage in information
collection and sharing the collected information to much broader audiences in
3 http://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/european-soil-database-v20-vector-and-attribute-data
4 http://webarchive.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/External-World-soil-database/HTML/
5 http://isric.org/explore
6 http://sis.agr.gc.ca/cansis/nsdb/index.html
7 https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/survey/geo/?cid¼nrcs142p2_053629
8 https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/survey/?cid¼nrcs142p2_053627
9 https://soils.landcareresearch.co.nz/soil-data/national-soils-data-repository-and-the-national-soilsdatabase/
10 https://www.soilgrids.org
54
Z. Sun et al.
better understand the soil physical, chemical, and biological attributes and dynamics
behind. Due to the long-term sensing, several databases of soil are available already,
such as the European Soil Database,
3 Harmonized World Soil Database,
4 ISRIC soil
data hub,
5 National Soil Database (NSDB) of Canada,
6 State Soil Geographic
(STATSGO) DataBase,
7 Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO)
8 of USDA,
and National Soils Database of New Zealand.
9 They contain vector and attribute
data, which tags the soil with very detailed hierarchy, and provide sound instructions
guiding users to apply in agriculture. Many websites are built to facilitate the access
to the soil data such as the SoilGrid.
10 The data in these databases are measured by in
situ sensors and archived via some collection channels. The databases are mainly
point-oriented and the resolution is out of concern. They are freely available online
for ordering. Agricultural users can either use these existing databases or
employ their own sensors to obtain more accurate and concurrent information
from the field. Modern technique makes both feasible.
4.2.4 Manual Reports
Manual reporting is the ancient way to gather information by authorities. Unbelievably, we still walk down the same road today. The principal nature of the reporters
and consumers doesn’t change much. But the patterns, processes, and channels are
dramatically reconstructed. The existence of information and communication technologies (ICT) (Aker 2011; De Silva and Ratnadiwakara 2008; Meera et al. 2004)
like wireless network and the Internet makes the exchange rapidly completed. The
reporters are usually the farmers themselves. They have to fill in information tables
and submit them to the government to request for authorization or approval of
actions, such as burning authorization, subsidies, wildland fire prevention, landowner assistance, bare root tree seedling orders, etc. Actually a lot of people are
working on collecting agricultural information and broadcasting to either agricultural or nonagricultural stakeholders (Chhachhar et al. 2014). A recently launched
activity called citizen science has encouraged citizens to engage in information
collection and sharing the collected information to much broader audiences in
3 http://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/european-soil-database-v20-vector-and-attribute-data
4 http://webarchive.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/External-World-soil-database/HTML/
5 http://isric.org/explore
6 http://sis.agr.gc.ca/cansis/nsdb/index.html
7 https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/survey/geo/?cid¼nrcs142p2_053629
8 https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/survey/?cid¼nrcs142p2_053627
9 https://soils.landcareresearch.co.nz/soil-data/national-soils-data-repository-and-the-national-soilsdatabase/
10 https://www.soilgrids.org
54
Z. Sun et al.