Main authors: | Luuk Fleskens, Coen Ritsema, Zhanguo Bai, Violette Geissen, Jorge Mendes de Jesus, Vera da Silva, Aleid Teeuwen, Xiaomei Yang |
iSQAPERiS editor: | Jane Brandt |
Source document: | Fleskens, L et al. (2020) Tested and validated final version of SQAPP. iSQAPER Project Deliverable 4.2, 143 pp |
Here we present the architecture of SQAPP, as revealed through the screens the user sees.
Contents table |
1. Profile |
2. Field characteristics |
3. Soil properties |
4. Soil threats |
5. Summary and recommendations |
6. More information |
1. Profile
Upon installing SQAPP, the user can choose to register or use the SQAPP for observing soil data. To register, an email address and password are required. The user can change the language from the opening screen or the profile screen (Figure 24).
Figure 24. SQAPP intro screen where the user can register (left), main screen if user chooses not to register (middle)
and profile screen where the user can also select ‘My profile’ to register (right).
Currently the app is available in 14 languages: English, Dutch, Chinese, Estonian, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovenian and Spanish. Registered users can save locations and get recommendations. If a user does not register, (s)he can still explore soil properties and soil threat data, but will not be able to receive recommendations. The user can search or move to a location of interest to explore soil data. If the user allows the app to access the GPS location, the default location will be the current position of the user’s mobile device. From the profile screen, users can access previously saved locations, their profile data (name and password), and language settings.
2. Field characteristics
Once a location is selected, the user can edit field characteristics. Going through the field characteristics is required in order to receive recommendations. Respective screens in the field characteristics module are shown in Figure 25.
Figure 25. Field characteristics screens 1/2 and 2/2, pop-up screen for selecting applied fungicides (listed in decreasing order of expected PEC after 1 day – relative PEC levels after 1 day and after 100 days are indicated by bars in dark and light grey), the field characteristics 2/2 screen after filling pesticides used and recommendation domains, and the main screen with the recommendations screen now available after having filled the field characteristics.
On the first characteristics screen the user can:
- Give the location a memorable name (the default is an automated sequential location numbering)
- Edit the altitude, precipitation, mean annual temperature and slope information available from global data. Precipitation and slope information may affect recommendations, mean annual temperature affects the rate of pesticide degradation.
- Select the right landscape position and land cover. These are prefilled from global data, but the user can correct or further specify these. Both characteristics will affect the agricultural management practices recommended. Recommendations are only given for arable and grassland: for ‘other’ land use soil property and soil threat data can still be consulted and edited, but no recommendations are given. Land cover, and its further specification in the second field characteristics screen, will furthermore determine the list of pesticide active substances authorized for use.
On the second field characteristics screen, the user can:
- Further specify the land cover with specific types of crops or grazing types. These may in some cases refine the agricultural management practices that will be recommended and be used to select the appropriate pesticides active substances authorized for use.
- Indicate the use of pesticides. To do this, they first have to select the last crop grown, and then check whether they have used herbicides, fungicides and/or insecticides. They may then either indicate the number of components used, or select the specific active substances applied from a list on a pop-up screen. The lists show crop-specific active substances authorized for use in three European zones (North, Central and South). Outside of Europe, the lists show all active substances authorized for use in Europe. The respective lists are ordered in sequence of high-to-low expected pesticide environmental concentration (PEC) one day after application. The aggregate expected influence on pesticide contamination (based on PEC score and number of active substances used) will be shown in the ‘Soil threats’ screen.
- Indicate any specific category or categories of management recommendations they are interested in. Agricultural management practices belonging to the selected categories will later on in the ‘Recommendations’ screen be presented in bold.
- Confirm the edits made to return to the main screen from where they can then proceed to view the soil properties, soil threats and recommendations for the location.
3. Soil properties
The soil properties screen shows an overview of the available data grouped under soil physical, chemical and biological properties (Figure 26). By clicking on the graph symbol, a cumulative density function of the values of the selected property for all locations within a specific pedoclimatic zone is visualized.
Figure 26. Soil properties overview screen, cumulative probability graph screen for soil microbial abundance, and pop-up screen to enter own data (top). When returning to the cumulative probability graph, the entered data is now visible (blue marker), and when returning to the overview screen the entered data is now also listed in blue font.
This graph screen shows:
- The minimum and maximum value of the indicator scores within the pedoclimatic zone for the selected land use (i.e. arable, grassland, or the full range for ‘other’).
- Whether these minimum and maximum values signify a negative, undesired (red dot symbol) or positive, desired (green dot symbol) soil property score, or whether the value cannot be attributed a desired or undesired score (grey dot symbol).
- The global data value available for the location (yellow diamond symbol). Position on the graph relative to the y-axis shows the percentage of locations having a lower score.
- Visualization of symbols can be switched on and off by clicking on the symbol in the legend, which is helpful if multiple symbols overlap.
Clicking the ‘Enter own data’ button opens a pop-up screen allowing the user to enter their own data for the selected property. They can specify a value, indicate whether this value concerns an estimate, field measurement or lab result, and the date the data was acquired. By sending this feedback, the value entered is saved for the specified location, and the user returns to the cumulative density graph, where the entered value is now visible with a blue diamond symbol. Returning to the soil property overview screen, the modified value is now visible in blue text. Once the user has checked all data and updated soil properties for which they have data, they can return to the main menu.
4. Soil threats
The soil threats screen shows an overview of the available data grouped under soil threat categories: soil erosion by water, soil erosion by wind, soil compaction, soil salinization, soil organic matter decline, soil nutrient depletion, soil acidification, soil contamination and soil biodiversity (Figure 27).
Figure 27. Soil threats overview screen (note colour-coded risk levels – green: low; orange: medium; red: high), cumulative probability graph screen for soil organic carbon content with graph background showing threat levels, and pop-up screen to enter own data (top). When returning to the cumulative probability graph, the entered data is now visible (blue marker), and when returning to the overview screen the entered data is now also listed in blue font (note that the value entered is classified as high soil threat level).
Next to the value of the soil threat indicators, this screen also visualizes the soil threat classifications of these values by depicting a green, yellow or red background colour for low, medium and high soil threat classifications, respectively. By clicking on the graph symbol, a cumulative density function of the values of the selected soil threat for all locations within a specific pedoclimatic zone is visualized. This graph screen shows:
- The minimum and maximum value of the indicator scores within the pedoclimatic zone for the selected land use (i.e. arable, grassland, or the full range for ‘other’).
- Whether these minimum and maximum values signify a negative, undesired (red dot symbol) or positive, desired (green dot symbol) soil property score, or whether the value cannot be attributed a desired or undesired score (grey dot symbol).
- The global data value available for the location (yellow diamond symbol). Position on the graph relative to the y-axis shows the percentage of locations having a lower score.
- The background of the graph, indicating whether the indicator score represents a low (green), medium (yellow) or high (red) threat classification.
Visualization of symbols can be switched on and off by clicking on the symbol in the legend, which is helpful if multiple symbols overlap.
Clicking the ‘Enter own data’ button opens a pop-up screen allowing the user to enter their own data for the selected soil threat indicator. They can specify a value, indicate whether this value concerns an estimate, field measurement or lab result, and the date the data was acquired. By sending this feedback, the value entered is saved for the specified location, and the user returns to the cumulative density graph, where the entered value is now visible with a blue diamond symbol. Returning to the soil threats overview screen, the modified value is now visible in blue text, and the soil threat class modified accordingly (in this case from moderate to high). Once the user has checked all data and updated soil threat indicators for which they have data, they can return to the main menu.
5. Summary and recommendations
After the user has reviewed field characteristics, soil properties and soil threats, pressing the recommendations button in the main screen first opens the summary screen (Figure 28).
Figure 28. Summary overview screen with potential for soil property improvement score and overall soil threat level, the recommendations screen listing the 10 highest scoring AMPs, and AMP information screen for minimum tillage (top). By clicking ‘showing examples’ a scrollable pop-up screen opens with photos and short descriptions. By clicking the indicator symbol, each AMP can be evaluated, as shown in the final overview.
The summary screen features two overall indicators:
- The overall potential for soil property improvement, expressed in a percentage 0-100%. An average soil would score 50%, so a score lower or higher than 50% is respectively below-average and above-average. Due to the averaging across multiple soil properties, extreme values (close to 0% and 100%) are rare and mostly relate to locations where the number of soil properties for which there is data is limited. Below the overall indicator is a list of individual soil properties for which the improvement potential is 67% or larger.
- The overall indicative soil threat level, expressed as a bar ranging from low to high. Like for soil parameters, the indicator score is calculated by averaging the soil threat scores across indicators (whereby for nutrient depletion and heavy metal contamination only the worst item is considered). Below the bar is a list of soil threats that are classified as high.
By clicking on the ‘recommendations’ button the user proceeds to the recommendations overview screen listing the 10 agricultural management practices with the highest score for the location-specific combination of soil properties and soil threats requiring attention. The list is shown with those AMPs belonging to the recommendation areas of interest specified by the user in the field characteristics (2/2) screen formatted in bold. For each AMP, the user can see further information by clicking on the ‘i’ symbol on the left-hand side, and review the AMP by selecting the indicator symbol on the right-hand side.
When clicking the ‘i’ symbol, the user sees a description of the AMP and its categorization. Between 1-8 specific examples of each AMP can be viewed and scrolled through by clicking on the ‘view examples’ button. Examples are given a level of complexity rating and illustrated. The reviewing of the AMPs is done by qualifying them as already implemented, inappropriate, potentially interesting or definitely interesting.
After the reviewing of individual AMPs, the ones of interest are shown in the next screen where the user can order them in order of interest (Figure 29).
Figure 29. Your rankings screen where the user can swap the order of (potentially) interesting AMPs, after which a final review screen with two questions pops up. Upon later revisiting the recommendations overview screen, all evaluations are saved except the definitely interesting ones (for which the user can now indicate whether they were implemented or otherwise; other evaluations can be changed too).
After the ordering, a feedback screen is shown with two simple questions (1. Were the recommendations useful for you? 2. Do you think you will implement one of the recommendations?) and an open feedback field. Upon (later) revisiting of the same location, the user ratings of the AMPs are brought in remembrance, but those that were definitely interesting are left open for a possible new evaluation (note: also the other ratings can be changed).
6. More information
By clicking on the ‘More information’ link in the main screen, a series of background information and interaction options are accessible (Figure 30).
Figure 30. Information overview screen with buttons to access further information or provide feedback on the app.
These options include the following:
- About – a brief description of the purpose and functionality of the app
- Disclaimer – a legal text explaining that the app is freely supplied but that no rights can be claimed from (implications of) its use.
- Privacy policy – a legal text explaining how user data is handled and how it conforms to the European GDPR regulations.
- Credits – a description of the third party data sources, development partners and financing.
- Feedback – a free-form field to send feedback and questions to the app development team.
- FAQ – a list of frequently asked questions and answers