An Integrated Expert Geographical Information System for Soil Suitability and Soil Evaluation

An integrated Expert Geographical Information System (EXGIS) is presented and applied for the evaluation of the suitability of soil and climatic conditions of in area of southern Greece, for five crops. EXGIS is an integration of an Expert System shell, designed for the manipulation of knowledge concerning soil suitability for agricultural uses, with the commercial GIS package PC ARC/INFO. The work was carried out for the purposes of a research program concerning the development of a Geographical Information System (GIS) for the management and evaluation of natural resources of the Pinios River basin, located in West Peloponnese, in South-Western Greece. Both the FAO system for soil evaluation and the local experience and knowledge of soil and climatic conditions were combined for the formulation of the rules of the knowledge base of EXGIS. The shell of the Expert System communicates with the commercial GIS PC ARC/INFO, under a common operating environment.