It is proposed to define informational soil science as a new direction of soil science, which includes a system of ordering, collecting, storing and analyzing soil data at different hierarchical levels, obtaining continuous information in space and time on soil condition for modeling and balanced use, reproduction and management of soil resources based on environmental, social, economic and legal requirements. In order to understand the specifics and special conditions of the formation of information resources in soil science, the historical stages of accumulation and formalization of information about soils are studied.
The object and subjects of study of informational soil science have been defined as well as main goals and methods of this new scientific direction. It is established that in the process of its origin and development, the soil forms the internal information model, which is a holistic multi-stage organized information system and contains information about all stages of matter development – from space to social. An information model of soil description for use in the data storage and processing has been developed, and a system of formalization of heterogeneous soil data has been proposed and a database structure has been created. Based on the natural hierarchy of soils, soil objects of vertical soil structure (profiles, horizons (layers), morphons, samples) and spatial soil objects (planar (contours, polygons), linear (transects, catenaries), point (profiles, sections).
Based on the open GIS program QGIS a regional soil information system of Lviv region was designed and developed as a means of formalizing soil data at various organizational levels, as well as an application tool for solving certain technological problems in soil science and land use. The important task of accounting for soil information, combining data on various topics, using digital soil maps and materials of large-scale soil surveys of the Lviv region as a basis has been solved.
