Matregion Nyland develops GIS-maps for farming in Uusimaa
Eduardo Grisales-Jaramillo, a former student of Sustainable Coastal Management at Novia, is currently working in the project Matregion Nyland. He makes terroir maps for cultivating areas in Uusimaa.
- They show a traffic-lights classification in terms of how well suited different areas are for growing new potatoes, apples, pasture raised meat and heritage grains, on a topographic map. The areas suited for cultivation are colored according to parameters given by the properties of the land at hand, for instance it´s suitability for growing potatoes.
The aim of making such maps is to find areas with high potential for the crops that are being researched within the project. Eduardo maps agricultural areas that already are in use, and areas that potentially could be used as pastures.
- Making a map, you start out by studying research from other areas in the northern hemisphere in the same context, like Canada, to see what parameters they take into account. You also collect data on the area at hand, regarding the temperatures and soil structure, the elevation, steepness, and directions of slopes. New potatoes, for instance, like a loamy composition of 40-50% sand, 20% rocky soil and 20-30% clay, which makes them quite flexible compared to some other crops. They like a slope of 0 to 5%, and the land should be facing south or south-east.
After looking at the parameters of the area itself, the surroundings are taken into account: how close the area is to water, the elevation of the land between the crops and the water body , the mean and variation of the land surface temperature. The water body can be a creek, river, lake or a sea, as long as it is bigger than two square kilometers, in order to create a microclimate. Lohja has good conditions for this, thanks to the big lake, and so does the coast.
Geographical data caught Eduardo´s interest during his studies at Novia, as he wrote his thesis on potatoes. Originally from Colombia, Eduardo has a degree in economics and worked in Helsinki for about two years.
- But I got tired of it and wanted to do something new. I also applied for master studies at the Aalto university, but chose Novia, since learning about sustainable coastal management was more in line with what I wanted to do. My internship after my studies was based on geographical data as well.
There are several programs to use for making GIS-maps, but Eduardo found ArcGIS Pro and Rstudio particularly user friendly, also for users who aren´t programmers. It´s easy to load the data of a certain period from the Metheorological Institute, and to adjust it in the program.
- The results are almost ready now and together with the project leader Christos Granqvist, I´ll grade the lands according to how many parameters each of them fits, into four categories, ranging from very suitable to not suitable at all.
The teroir maps of Matregion Nyland will soon be presented together with other results of the project, which is in its finishing phase.
Texten har granskats av Novias campusredaktion och publicerats 30.7.1.2021.
