An Giang is one of the leading provinces in agricultural production in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. However, in recent years, the effects of climate change and water security in the Mekong River have been major challenges for An Giang''s agriculture. Building an information system for agriculture based on GIS is a suitable direction.
An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol 6, 89 – 99 BUILDING AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION SYSTEM IN AN GIANG PROVINCE Tran Thai Binh1, Pham Duy Tien2, Ho Lam Truong1 Nguyen Ngoc Phuong Thanh1, Do Thanh Long1 Ho Chi Minh City Space Technology Application Center, Vietnam National Space Center An Giang University Information: Received: 05/09/2018 Accepted: 02/12/2018 Published: 03/2019 Keywords: Agricultural information system, An Giang, Open source WebGIS, Interactive map ABSTRACT An Giang is one of the leading provinces in agricultural production in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam However, in recent years, the effects of climate change and water security in the Mekong River have been major challenges for An Giang's agriculture Building an information system for agriculture based on GIS is a suitable direction These systems include applications using WebGIS technology, providing online data management and updating functions Display function on WebGIS allows showing information with interactive maps and interactive time-series chart In addition, a mobile application was developed to monitor the disease situation Applications are built into an agricultural portal that helps to share useful information with managers, businesses, and farmers INTRODUCTION personal computer that is not optimal for managing, sharing and publishing Especially, during the "restructuring of the agricultural sector", leaders and managers need to know spatial-temporal changes in agriculture to make quick and reasonable decisions An Giang is a province with the highest potential for agricultural production in the Mekong Delta and one of the “key national food producing provinces” (Southwest Steering Committee, 2016) However, climate change and water security in the Mekong Basin are challenges for An Giang’s agriculture Therefore, “the modernization of agriculture” and “restructuring of the agricultural sector” are the priority policies for sustainable development of An Giang’s agriculture Changes in agriculture in recent years have increased the need for data management However, there are some limitations on storage and management of agricultural data Agricultural data are stored by paper or digital files on a With the development of information technology and geographic information systems (GIS), especially open source WebGIS technology has allowed building an online and flexible application that supports for data collection, data management, and data mining The development of sustainable agriculture is not only a plan of developing countries but of the whole world as well At present, many countries have focused on the development of an agricultural information 89 An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol 6, 89 – 99 system that provides useful information to the public as well as a decision support system Thereby, the agricultural information system contributes to the increase in agricultural productivity in the context of climate change (Le et al., 2013; ESRI, 2009; ESRI, 2013) information system The system consists of components: WebGIS application base on an interactive map and interactive time-series chart technology; data management application for editing or updating data on the client computer; a mobile application for collecting data such as diseases, water quality, salinity intrusion (Figure 1) Based on the open source platform, this paper presents an approach to building an agriculture Figure An Giang agricultural information system The agricultural production information and related information such as meteorology, hydrology, soil and especially information on the agricultural disease are provided by WebGIS interface An agricultural information system is an indispensable tool for management, planning and agricultural structural reform - Data on agriculture: cultivation data, livestock data, and aquaculture data - Data on natural conditions: meteorological data, hydrographic data; soil map; agriculture disease data - Data on socio-economic: land use map; the location of agricultural production units (cooperatives), agricultural market information - Base map: data on administrative boundaries, traffic, hydrography, topography, satellite images MATERIALS AND METHODS 2.1 Materials The database includes data on agriculture, natural, socio-economic and base map (Figure 2): 90 An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol 6, 89 – 99 Figure Database catalog 2.2 Methods Spatial data is collected in various formats such as AutoCAD, MapInfo, MicroStation, Shapefile These data are converted into the unified format and coordinate system by QGIS software QGIS is an open-source geographic information system application that supports viewing, editing, and analysis of spatial data In this study, data use Vietnam Coordinate System for An Giang province (VN2000 - central meridian 104°45') Data is stored based on the relational model in PostgreSQL Spatial data was imported to PostgreSQL by PostGIS extension and QGIS software a) Method of data collection Secondary data was collected from a variety of sources to build a database for agricultural management Agricultural data from 2010 to 2016 was collected directly from An Giang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development In addition, soil map was collected from An Giang University, hydro-meteorological data collected from the An Giang Hydrometeorological Station, base map and current land use map collected from the An Giang Department of Natural Resources and Environment c) WebGIS technology This system uses WebGIS open source technology It consists of three levels (Figure 3): b) Methods of transformation, standardization and editing data 91 An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol 6, 89 – 99 the database, the application server, and the user interface used the open source map server - GeoServer to provide Web Map Service (WMS) (Giuliani et al 2013; Loechel & Schmid, 2012) At the database level, this WebGIS used PostgreSQL as database management system PostgreSQL is an open source object-relational database system that provides the full functionality of a database management system, including concurrency, integrity, security, backup, and recovery, especially supporting spatial data (Nair et al., 2015; Shukla et al., 2016) At the user interface level, web browsers (Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, etc.) on the client computer can run WebGIS applications This application uses the PHP and JavaScript programming language to combine the SQL language that helps to query the data The JavaScript language and open source “Mapbox GL JS” library are used to build user interface functions such as chart display, map display, zoom in – zoom out, view object information,…(map functions) At the application server level, this research used Web Servers as Apache and TomCat to handle Web-related tasks on the server This system also Figure WebGIS architecture in this study RESULTS In addition to the WebGIS application, this study also developed a mobile application that supports the collection of diseases data on plant and animal species in the field This application is programmed based on Mobile website technology (also known as Web Apps) These data are linked and stored directly on the server to assist decision makers when an outbreak occurs 3.1 WebGIS application The system provides interactive maps and timeseries charts based on WebGIS interface The statistics data on agriculture are presented visually and highly interactive This is a new way of expressing geographical information (Taylor & Plewe, 2006) This technology has the advantage 92 An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol 6, 89 – 99 of linking spatial data and statistical data to represent different types of charts (Andrienko et al., 2002; Nagel et al., 2013) When interacting with any component, the other of the components will be customized accordingly, so that the information displayed on the user's request (Figure 4) analyze data better However, each type of information has different graphical representations The WebGIS application is designed to display charts in flexible ways Bar charts or column charts are good for comparisons, while line charts work better for trends In the pie chart, the arc length of each slice is proportional to the magnitude of the quantity The chart is a graphical representation of data Visual information from the chart helps users Figure Interactive maps and time-series charts based on WebGIS interface Data is stored in a time series Therefore, the “chart function” in the WebGIS application provides a time bar at the bottom of some charts Users can choose the time period for analyzing the information (Figure 5) 93 An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol 6, 89 – 99 Figure The time bar is used to analyze the information The WebGIS application is based on Open GIS Consortium (OGC) standards Some of the common standards for geographic data distributed over the web environment are Web Map Service (WMS) or Web Feature Service (WFS) Therefore, WebGIS applications can provide functions such as displaying and querying geographic data in various forms, such as maps, charts, tables from raster data or vector data Thematic maps are integrated into the WebGIS application, such as land use map, soil map, satellite imagery… (Figure 6) Figure WebGIS application provides a variety of thematic maps 3.2 Data management application quickly and conveniently The data is updated by the user and stored directly to the server, including spatial and non-spatial data The data management functions is designed using web interface (Figure 7) Based on this function, the administrator can manage and update data 94 An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol 6, 89 – 99 Figure Data management function The users are defined into several groups Each group can access data at different levels (Figure 8) 95 An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol 6, 89 – 99 Figure User management function 3.3 Mobile application to collect disease data same time The collected data is quickly updated in the system and widely disseminated to the management staff as well as farmers to plan timely prevention (Figure 9) To collect data on site, a mobile application is built It runs on Android system The location, information, and pictures can be gathered at the 96 An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol 6, 89 – 99 Figure Mobile application to collected disease data 3.4 Agricultural information portal All applications of the agricultural information system are integrated into a portal Information on agriculture will be provided to various users such as administrator, local government office, businessman, farmer (Figure 10) 97 An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol 6, 89 – 99 Figure 10 The main interface of An Giang - Agriculture portal displayed in a browser with multi-temporal interactive maps Users can access data with a friendly interface This site also publishes agricultural news, disaster information, agricultural market information Useful information will help farmers develop effective production plans Besides, research institutions and universities can also access reliable sources of data for research and training Agriculture is an important economic sector in Vietnam, so the modernization of agricultural management is one of the urgent requirements Research on building an agricultural information system based on open source WebGIS technology shows that this technology provides the full functionality of a WebGIS application in agriculture This system promises to be an effective tool to support the management of local officials In addition, farmer and businesses can also look up useful information about agricultural production CONCLUSION Today, with the development of information technology, especially in the field of geographic information systems, the requirements of a database management system not only have the function of managing the attribute data but also must have spatial data management functions In this paper, all parts of the system use the open source software PostgreSQL and PostGIS can provide the requirements of a database management system and a large library of spatial functions Acknowledgments This study was part of “Research on building agricultural information systems for agricultural restructuring in An Giang Province”372.2016.14 funded by An Giang Department of Science and Technology Our research results show that storing agricultural data into a centralized and unified database facilitates the management of agriculture as well as building an agricultural information system Based on spatial data, agricultural information is 98 An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol 6, 89 – 99 REFERENCES rural development database management system by WebGIS technology Special Issue: An Giang University Journal of Science, 1–10 Andrienko, N., Andrienko, G., Voss, H., 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study, data use Vietnam Coordinate System for An Giang province (VN2000 - central meridian... production information and related information such as meteorology, hydrology, soil and especially information on the agricultural disease are provided by WebGIS interface An agricultural information system