Integrating crop simulation models with WebGIS for remote crop production management

Crop model simulates growth and yield of crop in field scale, and requires a lot of initial conditions and parameters as input data such as soil, water, climate data etc. WebGIS is a powerful tool for obtaining, managing and analysing spatial data on the Web. With the support of WebGIS, crop models based on Web services can be easily run on the Web by remote client and provide decision information and measures for crop production in the remote field. In this paper we describe such a system for remote crop production manage. For each cell of the grid where remote client lives on, WebGIS tool will extract the input variables (climate, crop, soil, ...) for the crop model from the corresponding data layers, then the model will be run and the database will be updated with the results of the simulation. Spatial analysis and representation of crop model input data and output results can also be done effectively on the Web. Both the input data for the model and the outputs from the model can be displayed on a map. The soil, water, climate data sets are organized in GIS layers. Users will also be able to create thematic maps for the results of the simulations.