Integrative Database System of Agroecology in the Black Soil of China

Jun Zhao a, Shaoliang Zhang b, Cuiping Ge c

a Northeast Institute of Geography and Agricultural Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Harbin 150040, China
b Heilongjang August First Land Reclamation University, DaQing 163319, China
c Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

The comprehensive database system of Northeast agroecology of blacksoil (NABL) is an user-friendly software designed to store and manage large amounts of data on agriculture. The data was collected in an efficient and systematic way by long-term experiments and observations of blackland and statistic information.

It is based on the Oracle database management system and operation interface is written in Java script and Asp language and html. The main characteristics of the database as following: (1) runs on website (2) facilitates data entry from *.dbf to Oracle or creates Oracle tables directly (3) metadata facility describes the methods used in the laboratory or in the observations (4) data can be transferred to the expert system for some simulation analysis and estimates made by Visual C++ and Visual Basic. (5) It can be connected with GIS , is easy to analyze changes of land use (6) metadata and data entity can be shared on the internet.

The following datasets are included in NABL: long-term experiments and observations of water, soil, climate, biology, special research projects and natural resource survey at Hailun county in the 1980s; images of remote sensing, graph of vector and grid, and statistics in Northeast of China. NABL can be used in the research and evaluation of agricultural sustainability nationally, regionally or locally. Also, it can be used as a tool to assist government in making a plan of agricultural development. Expert system connected with NABL can give farmers directions for their farm planting managements.

Keywords : database management system; Oracle; agricultural ecology; model; expert system.