Development of a Mobile GIS Application (LandInfo) for Land Use and Land Cover Field Data Collection

Abstract

Abstract Land use and Land cover (LULC) is considered one of the most basic data for any country. LULC information is used in many cases such as agricultural management, water resource management, urban planning, environmental management, etc. One of the optimal ways to generate low-cost and fast LULC maps is to use remote sensing and satellite imageries. Generation and accuracy assessment of maps requires accurate and reliable field data. The manual method of collecting field data is a traditional and reliable method that has been widely utilized since the past. Despite the advantages, this method has various limitations such as slow speed and time-consuming, limited forms, lack of control over the information of field users, difficult editing, difficulty entering data into the system and things like that. With the introduction of Global Positioning System (GPS) to mobile phones and the development of location-based applications, the concept of mobile Geographic Information System (GIS) was formed. Using mobile GIS as a tool to collect field data can overcome many limitations of the manual method. Therefore, this study has developed a GIS mobile application called "LandInfo" in order to obtain optimal and appropriate land information for the preparation and evaluation of LULC maps. The development of LandInfo application was accomplished through a process with four stages including needs assessment, application design, application implementation, and application testing. LandInfo is a native application based on the Android operating system, developed with Android and Java. The results of the study with the LandInfo application have increased the speed of the field data collection operation and resolve the limitations of the manual method. Our results demonstrate 22.97% reduction in data collection time and entering the software in a sample survey between the manual method and using LandInfo application.