Developing a web based mobile GIS application for soil mapping studies

Soil is one of the most important natural resources that directly and indirectly impacts human life, especially food supply. As soil formation and rehabilitation processes take a great deal of time, soil inventory studies and sustainable land management for soil conservation have gained significant importance over the years. Soil maps are the most important resources used by sectors, such as agriculture, forest, environment and urbanism which make use of soil data in their projects and activities. Outdated or less accurate soil maps may also negatively affect the projects and activities where they are used. In this context, collection of highly accurate soil data on site, which is the most important input of the soil map production process, is vital for the quality of the soil maps and reports to be developed. In this study, a web based mobile GIS application called "Soil Data System" was developed to work on mobile devices using Android operating system, so as to ensure that soil data on site is collected in an accurate, fast and reliable manner in soil survey and mapping studies, and thus to produce soil maps with high accuracy. This application was tested in the implementation area of the "Abadan Erosion Control Project", located within the provincial borders of Ankara, and completed in 2016 by the General Directorate of Forestry of the Republic of Turkey, as well as in the "Kalaba Rehabilitation Implementation Project" completed in 2017. Various findings were obtained in comparison with the classical soil survey and Soil Data System. As result of these analyses, it was observed that Soil Data System contributed positively to soil mapping process in terms of accuracy, transparency and time. In this thesis, a soil database to meet the needs of the sectors was developed with a view to contribute to the national soil database covering the entire country, to the production activities of current national soil maps, and to the creation of synergies between relevant organizations.