Adaptation of tables with soil data for further use in databases

Abstract

Goal. To adapt existing soil data tables according to national and international standards for their use in the «Soils of Ukraine» database. Methods. The following methods were used: analysis — to identify the structural and functional characteristics of soil databases; comparison — to determine differences in the principles of building the database structure; systematization — to generalize approaches to setting up soil data tables. Results. The structural and functional features of the global databases SOTER, GSM, and WoSIS were considered and key provisions were identified for each of them that can be borrowed for the development of the «Soils of Ukraine» database. The structure of the soil data tables was checked and data formats were assigned to the table fields under the principles of the relational data model. Each database table was assigned key fields: «Spatial attributes» — sampling point id, «Morphological attributes» — sampling point id and genetic horizon id, «Physical attributes», «Physicochemical and chemical attributes» — sampling point id, genetic horizon id, and soil layer id from which the sample was taken. Attribute coding was carried out in three ways: using an abbreviated name in Latin, a set of letter symbols (abbreviations), and numerical codes. Conclusions. The analysis of international databases allowed us to identify key approaches to the creation, configuration, and maintenance of the «Soils of Ukraine» database in the future. The adaptation process included checking tables for compliance with the principles of the relational data model, setting the data format of each table field, defining key fields to provide relationships between tables in the database, and encoding attribute names. In this way, the compliance of tables with soil data to database construction standards was achieved, as well as harmonization with world centers of soil information for global data exchange.